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A POET'S 

ANTHOLOGY OF 

POEMS 



BY 

ALFRED NOYES 



NEW YORK 

THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY 

LONDON 

ANDREW MELROSE 

1911 



<^^v^. 



1^ 






DEDICATED 
TO 

MY FATHER 



PREFACE 



" '^ \ ^HE future of poetry is immense, because 
X in poetry, where it is worthy of its high 
destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an 
ever surer and surer stay." So wrote Matthew 
Arnold in 1880, and at the present moment it 
may be useful to survey anew his reasons for 
that utterance. They were the subject of much 
controversy in his own lifetime, but at the present 
day the most fiercely debated of his premisses is 
established as almost a platitude. " There is not 
a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited 
dogma which is not shown to be questionable, 
not a received tradition which does not threaten 
to dissolve. Our religion has materialised itself 
in the fact ; it has attached its emotion to the 
fact, and now the fact is failing it. But for 
poetry the idea is everything ; the rest is a world 



of illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its 
emotion to the idea ; the idea is the fact. The 
strongest part of our religion to-day is its 
unconscious poetry." 

These words deserve the attention which their 
author evidently (for he repeats them elsewhere) 
desired them to have. They deserve it because 
they embody a response to a question which 
has never been directly answered, and perhaps 
never will be answered in the fixed form of a 
definition, the old question — What is poetry ? 

Is it possible to extort its secret? There has 
been much illogical wrestling with the Angel of 
poetry, whose harmony and reason are so absolute 
that our intellectual limbs have hitherto been 
writhen in that unequal contest at one touch of 
the celestial finger ; but the progress of the last 
generation or two has added greatly to our re- 
sources. We know better, at any rate, than to 
attempt to grapple with him at close quarters. 
We have begun to ask whether we may not 
range ourselves on his side, whether some com- 
munion may not be possible. Religion, certainly, 
finding him her strongest friend, desires this. 
But we may go further to-day than Matthew 
Arnold could foresee. It is not only the wrest- 
ling creeds and dogmas whose intellectual limbs 
viii 



\ 



have been writhen by a touch of the Angel's 
finger. We may turn on Science itself with its 
own ancient question and cry, " Pilate, what is 
truth?" At the present moment there is not 
a creed of ethics which is not shaken, not an 
accredited dogma of rationalism which is not 
shown to be questionable, not a received tradition 
of materialism which does not threaten to dis- 
solve. It is not that science and philosophy 
have followed the wrong path. Amid their own 
tribulations and martyrdoms they have held 
inexorably to the truth so far as they could see 
it ; but their glimpses of truth are leading them 
to a conclusion that they did not foresee. They 
placed their faith in the fact, as we may say, and 
now the fact is failing them. Their matter, their 
molecules, their first principles are literally 
opening before them infinite gates into — what 
shall we say ? Wherever they thought they had 
a fundamental fact, a basis for their systems of 
thought, they have only — on every side — an 
immeasurable and incomprehensible miracle. On 
every side, more silently, perhaps, than in 
temples made with hands, but not less reverently, 
all true men of science are bowing the head. 
The old kind of materialistic science has no 
meaning now, except in the fuddled brains pro- 



duccd by half-knowledge and cheap education. 
There is no such thing as '• atheism " except on 
the tubs of Hyde Park, and even there it is only 
a piteous cry for the light. The strongest part of 
our philosophy to-day is its unconscious poetry ! 

This statement does not detract from the work 
of Darwin any more than it detracts from the 
work of Carlyle. Both — to take an old metaphor 
— were ascending the same sacred mountain, 
though from different sides, and they meet on 
the summit. How many heart-burnings and 
tragic dilemmas would have been avoided when the 
drawing-rooms of the Victorian era were so amaz- 
ingly fluttered by the publication of The Descent of 
Man, if only the book itself had been read and 
mastered by those who feared its " tendency." 
How much more would have been avoided, what a 
sure stay would have been found, had the tremblers 
been well acquainted with their own poetry, to 
which the chief ideas in Darwin's theories had in 
many of their aspects long been familiar. Half- 
knowledge is ever the enemy. Poetry has ever 
exalted truth to heaven, and truth has ever 
accepted the invitation. Here, for instance, is a 
paragraph from The Descent of Man — a paragraph 
that may seem almost startling in its simplicity, 
amid the blaze of modern pyrotechnics. 

X 



'' I am aware," wrote Darwin, " that some of 
the conclusions arrived at in this work will be 
denounced by some as highly irreligious ; but he 
who denounces them is bound to show why it is 
more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a 
distinct species by descent from some lower form, 
through the law^s of variation and natural selec- 
tion, than to explain the birth of the individual 
through the laws of ordinary reproduction. The 
birth both of the species and of the individual are 
equally parts of that grand sequence of events, 
which our minds refuse to accept as the result of 
blind chance. The understanding revolts at such 
a conclusion." 

The understanding revolts ! In that short, 
sharp summary of the attitude of Darwin towards 
the "blind chance" systems of the sciolists we 
have the testimony of the world's greatest 
materialistic man of science, whose powers were 
devoted almost entirely to what he could touch 
or handle or see on this planet itself, and whose 
intellect worked with a vast machine-like accuracy 
over the whole field — necessarily limited — of its 
operations. 

The understanding revolts from doubt of what 
must be the basis of every sane intellect, a condi- 
tion of all thought, namely, an unhesitating accept- 
xi 



ance of the fundamental order and harmony of 
the universe^ an acceptance as imphcit as our 
much less logical certainty that the sun will rise 
to-morrow. That basis of the universe in an 
ultimate harmony is the first postulate and axiom 
of all thought, all science, all art. Without it, 
there is nothing left to us that has the slightest 
meaning. The sciolist who denies a positive 
ultimate meaning to the universe is in a very 
ridiculous position indeed if from such a quagmire 
he presents us with his baseless philosophy. 
He can have not the slightest justification for 
stringing a single sentence together. He has 
pulverised the foundations of all logic, and his 
words can have no more logical, orderly, or 
harmonious connection than the babble of an 
idiot smitten with aphasia. 

We are on firm enough ground here, in the last 
entrenchment, to find, if we do not already possess, 
the courage of our opinions, although there are 
many ' writers of distinction," some of them with 
a " European reputation," who solemnly discuss 
whether our world be not " an accident." It would 
be cruel to analyse the problems they raise with 
too keen a scrutiny, cruel to peruse too closely the 
meanings based on meaninglessness, and spun out 
of nothingness by the baseless brain of an Accident 
xii 



from Nowhere. But solemn books are annually 
produced on this basis by '' writers of distinction/' 
and those who might are usually unwilling to 
break their silence merely to re-affirm the 
elementary principles of all thought. One result 
is that many perplexed gropers after truth are 
over-clouded by pessimistic doubts that certainly 
blind them to the real splendour of great art. 
The little negations of the Patchouli poets mean 
more to them than the flaming heavens of Milton. 
An epigram at the expense of his noble simplicity 
means more than all the sublime poetry of 
Wordsworth. For these^ the secret of great 
poetry would almost seem to have been forgotten. 
Yetj even here, there are signs of the truth of 
Matthew Arnold's prophecy, in the popularity of 
that translation of a Persian poet by Fitzgerald, 
a glorious poem, which (while apparently pander- 
ing to the melancholy satisfaction of their 
agnostic, and literally know-nothing, philosophy) 
is by virtue of its poetry a more celestial and 
positive pandar than they know. " He knows 
about it all, He knows. He knows ! " 

What, then, is this secret of great poetry — we 

could say all great art, but we are concerned here 

with only one form of it — in which so clear and 

precise a critic as Matthew Arnold could affirm 

xiii 



that our race will come to find an ever surer and 
surer stay ? It is simply this — that all great 
poetry, all great art, brings us into touch, into 
communion with that harmony which is the basis 
of the universe, the harmony in which all our 
discords are resolved. All great art does this, 
and this is the one test of its greatness. It does 
not follow that great art must be didactic or 
philosophical, any more than that there must be 
a definite moral to every great story. But all 
great art shows the relation between its subject 
and the Eternal harmonies. A broken boot or 
an old tree-stump will serve as a subject for great 
art, if the artist can hold them up against the 
light of Eternity. Turner's picture of the 
"Fighting Temeraire towed to her last resting- 
place " is a popular but perfect example of great 
art, and the difference between that picture and 
the majority of merely pleasant sea-pictures is 
simply in the perfection of the relation established 
between the temporal details and the light of 
Eternity. 

This relation can be established in a thousand 
ways as the spirit moves the artist. Tragedy 
is not only a purging of the soul, it is a 
sloughing off of the temporal for the Eternal, and 
that is why in its greatness it is sublime. There 
xiv 



is no sublimity in meaningless annihilation^ the 
death of an insubstantial toad under a nonsensical 
harrow ; but there is sublimity in Hamlet's dying 
cry to his friend who would fain follow him — 

" Absent thee from felicity awhile," 

the only commentary upon which is — " God so 
loved the world." In tragedy it is obvious that 
the things of Eternity are affirmed or postulated 
only by an inspired denial of the merely temporal. 
But mere denial, mere negation, can never be 
great art. When Macbeth cries, " Out, out, brief 
candle ! " he is not coldly asserting as a scientific 
fact that man's life is brief and worthless. His 
words may superficially support that conclusion ; 
but that is not the whole of their import or 
content. The words have an emotional side 
ciying out in anguish against that conclusion. 
L'hey have that strange, deep, harmonious import 
of the greatest poetry, which is only vouchsafed 
to us when (as our fathers believed might happen 
to a man praying) some mysterious sluices are 
opened between the soul of man and the Infinite, 
and the Deep comes flooding in. Many genera- 
tions of our fathers have understood this seeming 
paradox that the words proclaiming all things 
to be vanity, over and above that proclamation, 

XV 



may postulate a passionate gospel. The cry of 
Macbeth has something of the same emotional 
content as the book of Ecclesiastes — and it goes 
to swell the terrible cry of Calvary^ " Why hast 
thou forsaken me ? " 

This book contains some of the greatest lyrical 
poetry in the English language^ arranged with a 
view to the elucidation of the great positive 
values which all great art contains. Such an 
arrangement is necessarily arbitrary, divisions will 
over-lap, and those who look for a definite 
philosophy will find statements as varied as those 
of Ecclesiastes and the Sermon on the Mount, 
But taking their deeper values, and allowing each 
poem to be elucidated by its neighbours, accord- 
ing to the plan of the book, there may be a few 
readers who will find in the body of this volume 
something of what Matthew Arnold promised 
them, and find it more easily than in the usual kind 
of anthology. Three poems which have a special 
appeal to our own times are Matthew Arnold's 
^^ Morality," Tennyson's "Wages," and the "Last 
Lines " of Emily Bronte. They form something like 
an irreducible minimum of faith and hope, on which 
the grander fabric of poems like " Abt Vogler " can 
find something of a foundation ; an irreducible 
minimum on which the mind can still find foothold, 
xvi 



through its darkest and most disastrous hours. 
They afford this foothold by the definite facts they 
give us, quite apart from the great gifts they 
convey to us by the power and beauty of their 
art. But this need not be insisted upon, as we are 
here more concerned with the positive values of 
art itself, and the way in which great poetry, 
as an art, brings us into communion with the 
Eternal Harmonies. Metre and rhythm (and 
their corresponding principles of harmony in 
other arts) have no small part to play in this, 
though they are more a consequence than a cause 
in all the greatest work. The music of intel- 
lectual exaltation, linking all things near and far, 
has its positive source in that eternal fount of 
harmony from which this great metrical cosmos, 
these pulsing hearts and swinging tides and 
wheeling stars, proceed. All these rhythms and 
cadences and harmonies of art carry an affirmation 
with them. They are constructive even when 
superficially they seem to deny our own limited 
creeds. In a word, they are literally poetry. 
Swinburne, denying one idea of God in the hymn 
to Proserpine, vehemently postulates another idea 
of God ; and, denying himself the more familiar 
outlets for religious feeling, re-affirms and worships 
the Omnipotent and Eternal in his Odes to Victor 
b 



Hugo. It is a mistake to think that the terms 
of the title of a poem usually contain all that the 
poem itself conveys. These Odes to Victor Hugo, 
for instance, are, in the most complete sense, acts 
of idolisation. Swinburne, in other words, in- 
sisted on having his own ritual. He may have 
been wrong in this ; but there is no mistaking 
the '^one" ultimate Throne before which he 
swings this golden censer, the One that remains 
while the many change and pass : — 

"All crowns before this crown 
Triumphantly bow down 
For pride that one more great than all draws nigh : 

All souls applaud, all hearts acclaim, 
One heart benign, one soul supreme, one conquering 
name." 

In the same way, point by point and principle 
by principle, in one poem or another, through his 
own form of ritual, this so-called anti-Christian 
re-affirms practically every emotion, and, more 
than that, every dogma of Christianity. He may 
write hymns to that one limited power in the 
universe — Aphrodite ; but he cannot shut his 
eyes to the presence of other and higher powers. 
It is not to Aphrodite that the bursting breast of 
cancer must bring its terrible passion ; and, when 
this " anti-Christian " is confronted by the terrible 
xviii 



realities of suffering on our earthy to what 
heavenly symbol does he turn^ as the highest 
that the human intellect has evoked ? — 

' ' O sacred head, O desecrate, 

O labour-wounded feet and hands, 
O blood poured forth in pledge to fate 

Of nameless lives in divers lands, 
O slain and spent and sacrificed 
People, the grey-grown speechless Christ ! " 

Art — it can never be repeated too often — has 
its own rituals ; and the content of a work of art 
is not to be apprehended in the same way as that 
of a text-book of philosophy or science. The 
poet begins, as it were, from the centre of things, 
while the philosopher works from the outer cir- 
cumference along his particular radius towards 
the centre where all philosophies and sciences 
will one day meet. The poet's mind, looking 
outward from that central security, sees the whole 
world co-ordinated and linked in harmony, sees 
that you cannot pluck a flower '^^ without troubling 
of a star." The man of science dealing with 
those details would be concerned with astronomy, 
or with botany alone ; and, though he would 
hesitatingly admit the absolute logical certainty 
of the connection • between the two sciences, he 
knows that it has little or no practical value along 
xix 



his particular radius or immediate line of work. 
Briefly^ the world appears to the poet, in his in- 
spired moments, at any rate, as something like a 
vast piece of music, wherein each note has its use 
and is necessary to all the others ; and wherein 
even the discords have a value in some resultant 
harmony, and are introduced, let us say, as 
Beethoven will deliberately introduce them for a 
similar purpose in his most perfect work. This is 
not an empty figure. It has its foundations, at 
any rate, in the foundations of logic itself. Every 
science and every branch of science is working 
towards the establishment of some such view of 
the universe. To the poet, as we have said, in 
his central security, nothing is more certain ; and 
it is easy for him to see not only a beautiful 
emotion but the plainest of logical conclusions in 
those wonderful lines of Blake : — 

' ' A skylark wounded on the wing 

Doth make a cherub cease to sing : 
A robin redbreast in a cage 
Puts all heaven in a rage." 

Now the passage I quoted above from Darwin 
has a continuation. I ended it with his declara- 
tion that the understanding revolts from the 
supposition that the universe is governed by 

XX 



^^ blind chance." Then comes one of the most 
extraordinary intellectual collapses, one of the 
most tragic land-slides of the whole fabric of a 
great man's mind, that has ever been recorded. 
He has spoken of " that grand sequence of events, 
which our minds refuse to accept as the result of 
blind chance. The understanding revolts at such 
a conclusion" — here he is writing, though as a 
scientist, yet with the large grasp of the great 
Greek dramatists, of Shakespeare and of 
Beethoven — then suddenly he narrows himself 
to his little radius of work and sinks to the earth 
completely by adding, "whether or not we are 
able to believe that every slight variation of dructure, 
— the union of each pair in marriage, the dissemina- 
tion of each seed — and other such events, have all 
been ordained for some special purpose." 

In other words, his untrained imagination re- 
volts from accepting the conclusions to which his 
trained understanding has led him. He is baffled 
simply by the multiplicity of things, in the same 
way that some people are afraid to believe in 
human immortality owing to the largeness of the 
population of London. This modesty of the 
intellect is rather akin to that of the lover who 
wrote to his lady — " I love you passionately, in 
my small way." Darwin could not believe — he 



shows it elsewhere — that every blade of grass, 
every leaf of every tree, had its exact part 
in the universal symphony. Worse than that, he 
could not even believe that what he said of so- 
called big things applied no less precisely to so- 
called small things. His understanding revolted 
from supposing that the larger movements of the 
stars were the result of blind chance, but his 
imagination failed him when exactly the same 
proposition presents itself with regard to the dis- 
semination of seeds. Yet, if our lives were on a 
much bigger scale, the stars themselves might 
then seem to us more insignificant than the seeds 
now appear ; and, if human beings were no bigger 
than ants, the same Charles Darwin would be 
gravely announcing that his understanding re- 
volted from supposing that the larger affairs of 
his ant-hill were the result of blind chance, but 
when it came to a question of the disposition of 
ants' eggs, he must admit the possibility of a break, 
a gap in Nature. 

Obviously it is all or nothing, and to great art 
the answer is clear as the sun — "all!" The 
smallest break in that eternal order and harmony 
is an immeasurable vacuum of the kind that both 
art and science abhor ; for, if we admit it, the 
universe has no meaning. The poet demanding 
xxii 



that not a worm should be cloven in vain, or 
crying with Blake that a robin in a cage shakes 
heaven with anger, are at one with that profound 
truth — a sparrow shall not fall to the ground with- 
out your Father. The blades of the grass are all 
numbered. There is no break in the roll of that 
harmony '^ whereto the worlds beat time " : and 
it is because great art brings out, as a conductor 
with his wand, the harmonies hidden by the dust 
of daily affairs, that in poetry, as time goes on, 
our race will come to find an ever surer and surer 
stay. 



XXUl 



The Editor desires to tiiank the authors and 
publishers whose kindness has permitted the use 
of copyright poems in this book — Mrs. Meynell 
for extracts from Poems and Later Poems (published 
by Mr. Lane) ; Mr Edmund Gosse for a poem from 
An Autumn Garden (Heinemann) ; Mr. Wilfred 
Meynell for poems by Francis Thompson (Messrs. 
Burns & Oates). 



XXV 



CONTENTS 



BOOK 






PAGE 




Preface 






vii 


I. 


In the Beginning 






I 


II. 


The Sweet o' the Year 






17 


III. 


The Lover 






51 


IV. 


A Little Philosophy 






125 


V. 


A Joy for Ever 






149 


VI. 


Of Such as These . 






221 


VII. 


The Book of Memory 






307 


VIII. 


Stepping Westward. 






331 


IX. 


The Eternal Spring 






379 



XXVIl 



BOOK I 
IN THE BEGINNING 



Hymn to Darkness >iy^ ^o" >c^ o 

HAIL thou most sacred venerable thing ! 
What Muse is worthy thee to sing ? 
Thee, from whose pregnant universal womb 
All things, ev'n Light, thy rival, first did come. 
What dares he not attempt that sings of thee. 

Thou first and greatestfiafiystery ? 
Who can the secrets of thy essence tell ? 
Thou, like the light of God, art inaccessible. 

Before great Love this monument did raise. 
This ample theatre of praise ; 
Before the folding circles of the sky 
Were tuned by Him, who is all harmony ; 
Before the morning stars their hymn began. 

Before the council held for man. 
Before the birth of either time or place. 
Thou reign' st unquestioned monarch in the empty 
space. 

3 



Thy native lot thou didst to Light resign. 
But still half of the globe is thine. 
Here with a quiet, but yet awful hand. 
Like the best emperors thou dost command. 
To thee the stars above their brightness owe. 

And mortals their repose below : 
To thy protection fear and sorrow flee. 
And those that weary are of light, find rest in thee. 

J. NORRIS OF BeMERTON. 



The Word to Chaos <:><:> ^p» <p» 

'• ^ A ND thou my Word, begotten Son, by thee 
1~\. This I perform ; speak thou, and be it 
done. 
My overshadowing Spirit and might with thee 
I send along ; ride forth, and bid the deep 
Within appointed bounds be heaven and earth ; 
Boundless the deep, because I AM who fill 
Infinitude, nor vacuous the space ; 
Though I uncircumscribed myself retire. 
And put not forth my goodness, w^hich is free 
To act, or not, necessity and chance 
Approach not me, and what I will is fate.' 

Immediate are the acts of God, more swift 
4 



Than time or motion, hut to human ears 

Cannot without process of speech be told, 

So told as earthly notion can receive. 

Great triumph and rejoicing was in heaven. 

When such was heard declared the Almighty's 

will ; 
Glory they sung to the Most High, good will 
To future men, and in their dwellings peace. 

^"^So sang the Hierarchies. Meanwhile the Son 
On his great expedition now appeared, 
Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned 
Of majesty divine : sapience and love 
Immense, and all his Father in him shone. 
About his chariot numberless were poured 
Cherub and Seraph, Potentates and Thrones, 
And Virtues, winged Spirits, and Chariots winged 
From the armoury of God, where stand of old 
Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged 
Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand, 
Celestial equipage ; and now came forth 
Spontaneous, for within them spirit lived, 
Attendant on their Lord : heav'n opened wide 
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound 
On golden hinges moving, to let forth 
The King of Glory, in his powerful Word 
And Spirit coming to create new worlds. 
5 



On heavenly ground they stood, and from the 

shore 
They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss. 
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild. 
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds 
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault 
Heaven's height, and with the centre mix the pole. 

" ' Silence, ye troubled waves, and, thou Deep, 
peace,' 
Said then th' omnific Word ; ' your discord end.' 
Nor stayed ; but, on the wings of Cherubim 
Uplifted, in Paternal Glory rode 
Far into Chaos and the world unborn ; 
For Chaos heard his voice. 

" ' Let there be light,' said God, and forthwith 
light 
Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure, 
Sprung from the deep." 

Milton. 



The Tiger 



TIGER, tiger, burning bright 
In the forests of the night. 
What immortal hand or eye 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry } 
6 



In what distant deeps or skies 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes ? 
On what wings dare he aspire ? 
What the hand dare seize the fire ? 

And what shoulder and what art 
Could twist the sinews of thy heart ? 
And, when thy heart began to beat, 
What dread hand and what dread feet ? 

What the hammer ? what the chain ? 
In what furnace was thy brain ? 
What the anvil ? what dread grasp 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp ? 

When the stars threw down their spears. 
And watered heaven with their tears, 
Did He smile His work to see ? 
Did He who made the lamb make thee ? 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright 
In the forests of the night. 
What immortal hand or eye 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry ? 

Blake. 



A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, l687 -^ <^ 

FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony. 
This universal frame began : 
When nature underneath a heap 

Of jarring atoms lay. 
And could not heave her head. 
The tuneful voice was heard from high, 

Arise, ye more than dead. 
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry. 
In order to their stations leap. 
And Music's power obey. 
From harmony, from heavenly harmony 
This universal frame began : 
From harmony to harmony. 
Through all the compass of the notes it ran. 
The diapason closing full in Man. 

What passion cannot Music raise and quell ? 
When Jubal struck the chorded shell, 
His listening brethren stood around. 
And, wondering, on their faces fell 
1 o worship that celestial sound. 
Less than a God they thought there could not dwell 
Within the hollow of that shell. 
That spoke so sweetly and so well. 
W^hat passion cannot Music raise and quell ? 
8 



The trumpet's loud clangor 

Excites us to arms, 
With shrill notes of anger, 

And mortal alarms. 
The double double double beat 

Of the thundering drum 

Cries, hark ! the foes come ; 
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat. 

The soft complaining flute 
In dying notes discovers 
The woes of hopeless lovers. 
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute. 

Sharp violins proclaim 
Their jealous pangs, and desperation, 
Fury, frantic indignation. 
Depth of pains, and height of passion, 
For the fair, disdainful dame. 
But oh ! what art can teach. 

What human voice can reach. 
The sacred organ's praise ? 
Notes inspiring holy love. 
Notes that wing their heavenly ways 
To mend the choirs above. 

Orpheus could lead the savage race ; 
And trees uprooted left their place. 
Sequacious of the lyre : 
9 



But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher ; 
When to her organ vocal breath was given, 
An angel heard, and straight appear'd 
Mistaking earth for heaven. 

GRAND CHORUS. 

As from the power of sacred lays 
The spheres began to move. 
And sung the great Creator's praise 

To all the bless'd above ; 
So when the last and dreadful hour 
This crumbling pageant shall devour. 
The trumpet shall be heard on high, 
The dead shall live, the living die. 
And Music shall untune the sky. 

Dryden. 



Hymn to Light o ^:> <^ <:> ^^^ 

HAIL, holy Light ! offspring of heav'n first- 
born, 
Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam. 
May I express thee unblamed ? since God is light. 
And never but in unapproached light 
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, 
lo 



Bright effluence of bright essence increate. 

Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream, 

Whose fountain who shall tell ? before the sun. 

Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice 

Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest 

The rising world of waters dark and deep. 

Won from the void and formless infinite. 

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing. 

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained 

In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight 

Through utter and through middle darkness 

borne. 
With other notes than to th' Orphean lyre,i 
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night, 
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down 
The dark descent, and up to reascend. 
Though hard and rare : thee 1 revisit safe. 
And feel thy sov'reign vital lamp ; but thou 
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain 
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn ; 
So thick a drop serene ^ hath quenched their 

orbs. 
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more 
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt 

^ Orpheus wrote a hymn to Night, addressing her as 
' ' Mother of gods and men. " 
^ Milton's blindness was caused by gutta serena. 



Clear springs or shady grove, or sunny hill, 
Smit with the love of sacred song ; but chief 
Thee Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath. 
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow. 
Nightly I visit ; nor sometimes forget 
Those other two equalled with me in fate. 
So were I equalled with them in renown. 
Blind Thamyris ^ and blind Maeonides,^ 
And Tiresias ^ and Phineus,'* prophets old. 
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move 
Harmonious numbers ; as the wakeful bird 
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid 
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year 
Seasons return, but not to me returns 
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn. 
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose. 
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine ; 
But cloud instead, and ever-durhig dark 
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men 
Cut off*, and for the book of knowledge fair 
Presented with a universal blank 
Of nature's works to me expunged and rased. 
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 
So much the rather thou, celestial Light, 

^ A Thracian who invented the Doric measures. 

2 Homer. ^ A blind Theban prophet (Newton). 

■* King of Arcadia. 

12 



Shine inward, and the mind through all her 

powers 
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence 
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell 
Of things invisible to mortal sight. 

Milton. 



The Morning Song of the Birds <:> <p> yc?« 

THE lark sitting upon his earthy bed, just as 
the morn 
Appears, listen silent, then springing from the 

waving cornfield 
Loud he leads the choir of Day : thrill ! thrill ! 

thrill ! 
Mounting upon the wings of light into the great 

expanse, 
Reaching against the lovely blue and shining 

heavenly skies ; 
His little throat labours with inspiration ; every 

feather 
On throat and breast and wings vibrates with 

the effluence divine. 
All nature listens silent to him, and the awful sun 
Stands still upon the mountain looking on the little 
bird 

13 



With eyes of soft humility, and wonder, love and 

awe. 
Then loud from their green covert all the birds 

begin their song : 
The thrush, the linnet, and the gold-finch, robin 

and the wren. 
Awake the sun from his sweet reverie on the 

mountain. 

Blake. 



The Morning Scent of the Flowers -^^ •^P' 

THOU perceivest the flowers put forth their 
precious odours. 
And none can tell how from so small a centre 

come such sweets. 
Forgetting that within that centre Eternity 

expands 
Its ever-during doors, that Og and Anak fiercely 

guard. 
First ere the morning breaks, joy opens in the 

flowery bosoms, 
Joy even to tears, which the sun rising dries : first 

the wild thyme. 
And meadowsweet, downy, and soft waving among 

the reeds, 

14 



Light springing on the air lead the sweet dance ; 

they wake 
The honeysuckle sleeping on the oak^ the flaunting 

beauty 
Revels along upon the wind ; the white- thorn lovely 

May 
Opens her many lovely eyes ; listening, the rose 

still sleeps. 
None dare to wake her ; soon she bursts her 

crimson-curtained bed, 
And comes forth in the majesty of beauty. Every 

flower. 
The pink, the jessamine, the wall-flower and the 

carnation. 
The jonquil ; the mild lily opens her leaves ; every 

tree 
And flower and herb soon fill the air with an 

innumerable dance. 
Yet all in order, sweet and lovely. Men are sick 

with Love. 

Blake. 



^5 



BOOK II 
THE SWEET O' THE YEAR 



The Song of Enitharmon ^^^ ^?^ ^o ^:> 

ARISE, you little glancing wings, and sing 
your infant joy, 
Arise and drink your bliss, 
For everything that lives is holy, for the source of 

life 
Descends to be a weeping babe, 
For the earth-worm renews the moisture of the 
sandy plain. 

Now my left hand I stretch abroad even to earth 

beneath, 
And strike the terrible string, 
I wake sweet joy in dews of sorrow, and I plant 

a smile 
In forests of affliction. 
And wake the bubbling springs of life in regions 

of dark death. 

Blake. 

19 



To a Skylark 



H 



AIL to thee, blithe Spirit ! 
Bird thou never wert. 
That from Heaven, or near it, 
Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest 
Like a cloud of fire ; 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever 
singest. 

In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun. 
O'er which clouds are bright'ning. 
Thou dost float and run ; 
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 

The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight ; 
Like a star of Heaven, 
In the broad daylight 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill 
delight, 

20 



Keen as are the arrows 

Of that silver sphere, 
Whose intense lamp narrows 

In the white dawn clear, 
Until we hardly see — we feel that it is there. 

All the earth and air 

With thy voice is loud, 
As, when night is bare. 
From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is 
overflowed. 

What thou art we know not ; 

What is most like thee ? 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 

Drops so bright to see 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 

Like a Poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden. 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 

Like a high-born maiden 
In a palace-tower, 

21 



Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her 
bower : 



Like a glow-worm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aereal hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it 
from the view : 



Like a rose embowered 

In its own green leaves. 
By warm winds deflowered, 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy- 
winged thieves : 

Sound of vernal showers 

On the twinkling grass. 
Rain-awakened flowers. 
All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh^ thy music doth 
surpass : 

22 



Teach us. Sprite or Bird, 

What sweet thoughts are thine : 

I have never heard 
Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 



Chorus Hymeneal, 

Or triumphal chant, 
Matched with thine would be all 
But an empty vaunt, 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden 
want. 



What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain ? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
What shapes of sky or plain ? 
What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of 
pain ? 



With thy clear keen joyance 

Languor cannot be : 
Shadow of annoyance 
Never came near thee : 
Thou lovest — but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 
23 



Waking or asleep^ 

Thou of death must deem 
Things more true and deep 
Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal 
stream ? 



We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not : 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught ; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest 
thought. 

Yet if we could scorn 

Hate, and pride, and fear ; 
If we were things born 
Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come 
near. 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound. 
Better than all treasures 
That in books are found. 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 
24 



Teach me half the gladness 

That thy bram must know. 

Such harmonious madness 

From my lips would flow. 

The world should listen then — as I am listening 

now. 

Shelley. 



The Rainbow >£> ^o^ ^o ^o 

MY heart leaps up when I behold 
A rainbow in the sky : 
So was it when I was a child. 
So is it now I am a man, 
So let it be when I grow old. 

Or let me die : 
The child is father to the man, 
And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety. 

Wordsworth. 

Corinna's going a-Maying o ^c?^ ^c^ 



G 



ET up, get up for shame, the blooming morn 
Upon her wings presents the god unshorn. 
See how Aurora throws her fair 
Fresh-quilted colours through the air : 

25 



Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see 
The dew bespangling herb and tree. 
Each flower has wept, and bowed toward the east 
Above an hour smce, yet you not dressed. 
Nay ! not so much as out of bed ; 
When all the birds have matins said. 
And sung their thankful hymns : 'tis sin. 
Nay, profanation to keep in, 
Whenas a thousand virgins on this day 
Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May. 

Rise, and put on your foliage, and be seen 
To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and 
green. 
And sweet as Flora. Take no care 
For j e wels for your gown or hair : 
Fear not, the leaves will strew 
Gems in abundance upon you : 
Besides, the childhood of the day has kept 
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept. 
Come, and receive them while the light 
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night. 
And Titan on the eastern hill 
Retires himself, or else stands still 
Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in 

praying : 
Few beads are best, when once we go a-Maying. 
26 



Come, my Corinna, come ; and coming, mark 
How each field tm*ns a street, each street a park 
Made green, and trimmed with trees : see 

how 
Devotion gives each house a bough 
Or branch ; each porch, each door, ere 

this. 
An ark, a tabernacle is, 
Made up of white-thorn neatly interwove. 
As if here were those cooler shades of love. 
Can such delights be in the street 
And open fields, and w^e not see't ? 
Come, we'll abroad, and let's obey 
The proclamation made for May : 
And sin no more, as we have done, by staying ; 
But, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying. 

There's not a budding boy or girl, this day, 
But is got up and gone to bring in May. 
A deal of youth, ere this, is come 
Back, and with white-thorn laden home. 
Some have despatched their cakes and 

cream 
Before that we have left to dream : 
And some have wept, and wooed and plighted 

troth. 
And chose their priest, ere we can cast off sloth : 
27 



Many a green gown has been given ; 
Many a kiss, both odd and even : 
Many a glance, too, has been sent 
From out the eye, love's firmament : 
Many a jest told of the key's betraying 
This night, and locks picked, yet we're not a- 
Maying. 

Come, let us go, while we are in our prime. 
And take the harmless folly of the time. 
We shall grow old apace and die 
Before we know our liberty. 
Our life is short, and our days run 
As fast away as does the sun : 
And as a vapour, or a drop of rain 
Once lost, can ne'er be found again : 
So when or you or I are made 
A fable, song, or fleeting shade. 
All love, all liking, all delight. 
Lies drowned with us in endless night. 
Then while time serves, and we are but decaying. 
Come, my Corinna, come, let's go a-Maying. 

Herrick. 



28 



The Cloud -o o <?- o o ^o 

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers 
From the seas and the streams ; 
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 

The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast. 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail. 

And whiten the green plains under, 
And then again I dissolve it in rain. 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

I sift the snow on the mountains below. 

And their great pines groan aghast ; 
And all the night 'tis my pillow white. 

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers. 

Lightning my pilot sits ; 
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder. 

It struggles and howls at fits ; 
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion. 

This pilot is guiding me. 
Lured by the love of the genii that move 

In the depths of the purple sea ; 
29 



Over the rills, arid the crags, and the hills, 

Over the lakes and the plains. 
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream. 

The Spirit he loves remains ; 
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile. 

Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes. 

And his burning plumes outspread. 
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack. 

When the morning star shines dead ; 
As on the jag of a mountain crag. 

Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 
An eagle alit one moment may sit 

In the light of its golden wings. 
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea 
beneath. 

Its ardour of rest and of love. 
And the crimson pall of eve may fall 

From the depth of Heaven above, 
With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest. 

As still as a brooding dove. 

That orbed maiden with white fire laden. 

Whom mortals call the Moon, 
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor. 

By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
30 



And wherever the beat of her unseen feet. 

Which only the angels hear, 
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 

The stars peep behind her and peer ; 
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 

Like a swarm of golden bees, 
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas. 
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high. 

Are each paved with the moon and these. 

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, 

And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl ; 
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and 
swim. 

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape. 

Over a torrent sea. 
Sunbeam -proof, 1 hang like a roof, — 

The mountains its columns be. 
The triumphal arch through which 1 march 

With hurricane, fire, and snow. 
When the Powers of the air are chained to my 
chair, 

Is the million-coloured bow ; 
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, 

While the moist Earth was laughing below. 
31 



I am the daughter of Earth and Water, 

And the nursling of the Sky ; 
1 pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 

I change, but 1 cannot die. 
For after the rain when -with never a stain 

The paviUon of Heaven is bare, 
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex 
gleams. 

Build up the blue dome of air, 
J silently laugh at my own cenotaph. 

And out of the caverns of rain. 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from 
the tomb, 

I arise and unbuild it again. 

Shelley. 

The Poet's Song <:> ,i:> ^::> .i> ^ip- 

THE rain had fallen, the Poet arose. 
He passed by the town and out of the 
street, 
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun, 
And waves of shadow went over the wheat. 
And he sat him down in a lonely place. 

And chanted a melody loud and sweet. 
That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud. 
And the lark drop down at his feet. 
32 



The swallow stopt as he hunted the fly, 

The snake slipt under a spray, 
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak, 

And stared, with his foot on the prey. 
And the nightingale thought, " I have sung many 
songs. 

But never a one so gay, 
For he sings of what the world will be 

When the years have died away." 

Tennyson. 



Chorus 



<:> 



THE world's great age begins anew, 
The golden years return. 
The earth doth like a snake renew 

Her winter weeds outworn : 
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam. 
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. 

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains 

From waves serener far ; 
A new Peneus rolls his fountains 

Against the morning star. 
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep 
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. 
C 33 



A loftier Argo cleaves the main. 

Fraught with a later prize ; 
Another Orpheus sings again. 

And loves, and weeps, and dies. 
A new Ulysses leaves once more 
Calypso for his native shore. 

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy, 
If earth Death's scroll must be ! 

Nor mix with Laian rage the joy 
Which dawns upon the free : 

Although a subtler Sphinx renew 

Riddles of death Thebes never knew. 

Another Athens shall arise, 

And to remoter time 
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, 

The splendour of its prime ; 
And leave, if nought so bright may live. 
All earth can take or Heaven can give. 

Saturn and Love their long repose 
Shall burst, more bright and good 

Than all who fell, than One who rose. 
Than many unsubdued : 

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers. 

But votive tears and symbol flowers. 
34 



Oh^ cease ! must hate and death return ? 

Cease ! must men kill and die ? 
Cease ! drain not to its dregs the urn 

Of bitter prophecy. 
The world is weary of the past. 
Oh, might it die or rest at last ! 

Shelley 



From the Night of Forebeing ^c* .^t- ,c> 

AN ODE AFTER EASTER. 

" In the chaos of preordination, and night of our fore 
beings." — SiR Thomas Browne. 

*'Et lux in tenebris erat, et tenebroe earn non compre- 
henderunt." — St. John. 

CAST wide the folding doorways of the East, 
For now is light increased ! 
And the wind-besomed chambers of the air. 
See they be garnished fair ; 

And look the ways exhale some precious odours. 
And set ye all about wild-breathing spice. 
Most fit for Paradise. 
Now is no time for sober gravity, 
Season enough has Nature to be wise 
35 



But now discinct, with raiment glittering free. 
Shake she the ringing rafters of the skies 
With festal footing and bold joyance sweet, 
And let the earth be drunken and carouse ! 
For lo, into her house 
Spring is come home with her world-wandering 

feet, 
And all things are made young with young 

desires ; 
And all for her is light increased 
In yellow stars and yellow daffodils. 
And East to West, and West to East, 
Fling answering welcome-fires. 
By dawn and day-fall, on the jocund hills. 
And ye, winged minstrels of her fair meinie. 
Being newly coated in glad livery, 
Upon her steps attend. 

And round her treading dance and without end 
Reel your shrill lutany. 

What popular breath her coming does out-tell 
The garrulous leaves among ! 
What little noises stir and pass 
From blade to blade along the voluble grass ! 
O Nature, never-done 
Ungaped-at Pentecostal miracle. 
We hear thee, each man in his proper tongue ! 
Break, elemental children, break ye loose 

36 



From the strict frosty rule 

Of grey-beard Winter's school. 

Vaults O young winds, vault in your tricksome 

courses 
Upon the snowy steeds that reinless use 
In coerule pampas of the heaven to run ; 
Foaled of the white sea-horses, 
Washed in the lambent waters of the sun. 
Let even the slug-a-bed snail upon the thorn 
Put forth a conscious horn ! 
Mine elemental co-mates, joy each one ; 
And ah, my foster-brethren, seem not sad — 
No, seem not sad. 
That my strange heart and I should be so little 

glad. 
Suffer me at your leafy feast 
To sit apart, a somewhat alien guest. 
And watch your mirth, 
Unsharing in the liberal laugh of earth ; 
Yet with a sympathy. 

Begot of wholly sad and half-sweet memory — 
The little sweetness making grief complete ; 
Faint wind of wings from hours that distant 

beat. 
When I, I too, 

Was once, O wild companions, as are you. 
Ran with such wilful feet, 
37 



Wraith of a recent day and dead, 

Risen wanly overhead, 

Frail, strengthless as a noon-belated moon, 

Or as the glazing eyes of watery heaven, 

When the sick night sinks into deathly swoon. 

A higher and a solemn voice 

I heard through your gay-hearted noise ; 

A solemn meaning and a stiller voice 

Sounds to me from far days when I too shall 

rejoice. 
Nor more be with your jollity at strife. 
O prophecy 

Of things that are, and are not, and shall be ! 
The great-vanned Angel March 
Hath trumpeted 
His clangorous "Sleep no more" to all the 

dead — 
Beat his strong vans o'er earth, and air, and 

sea. 
And they have heard ; 
Hark to the Jubilate of the bird 
For them that found the dying way to life ! 
And they have heard. 

And quicken to the great precursive word ; 
Green spray showers lightly down the cascade of 

the larch ; 

38 



The graves are riven^ 

And the Sun comes with power amid the clouds 

of heaven ! 
Before his way 

Went forth the trumpet of the March ; 
Before his way, before his way 
Dances the pennon of the May ! 
O Earth, unchilded, widowed Earth, so long- 
Lifting in patient pine and ivy-tree 
Mournful belief and steadfast prophecy, 
Behold how all things are made true ! 
Behold your bridegroom cometh in to you, 
Exceeding glad and strong. 
Raise up your eyes, O raise your eyes abroad ! 
No more shall you sit sole and vidual, 
Searching, in servile pall. 
Upon the hieratic night the star-sealed sense of 

all: 
Rejoice, O barren, and look forth abroad ! 
Your children gathered back to your embrace 
See with a mother's face. 
Look up, O mortals, and the portent heed ; 
In very deed. 

Washed with new fire to their irradiant birth. 
Reintegrated are the heavens and earth ! 
From sky to sod. 

The world's unfolded blossom smells of God. 
39 



O imagery 

Of that which was the firsts and is the last ! 
For as the dark^ profound nativity, 
God saw the end should be. 
When the world's infant horoscope He cast. 
Unshackled from the bright Phcebean awe. 
In leaf, flower, mould, and tree. 
Resolved into dividual liberty, 
Most strengthless, unparticipant, inane. 
Or suffered the ill peace of lethargy, 
Lo, the Earth eased of rule, 
Unsummered, granted to her own worst smart 
The dear wish of the fool — 
Disintegration, merely which man's heart 
For freedom understands. 
Amid the frog-like errors from the damp 
And quaking swamp 

Of the low popular levels spawned in all the lands. 
But thou, O Earth, dost much disdain 
The bondage of thy waste and futile reign, 
And sweetly to the great compulsion draw 
Of God's alone true-manumitting law. 
And Freedom, only which the wise intend. 
To work thine innate end. 
Over thy vacant counterfeit of death 
Broods with soft urgent breath 
Love, that is child of Beauty and of Awe : 
40 



To intercleavage of sharp warring pain, 

As of contending chaos come again, 

Thou wak'st, O Earth, 

And work'st from change to change and birth to 

birth 
Creation old as hope, and new as sight ; 
For meed of toil not vain. 
Hearing once more the primal fiat toll : — 
"Let there be light!" 
And there is light ! 
Light flagrant, manifest ; 
Light to the zenith, light from pole to pole ; 
Light from the East that waxeth to the West, 
And with its puissant goings-forth 
Encroaches on the South and on the North ; 
And with its great approaches does prevail 
Upon the sullen fastness of the height. 
And summoning its levied power 
Crescent and confident through the crescent hour. 
Goes down with laughters on the subject vale. 
Light flagrant, manifest ; 

Liffht to the sentient closeness of the breast ! 
Light to the secret chambers of the brain ! 
And thou up-floatest, warm, and newly bathed. 
Earth, through delicious air. 

And with thine own apparent beauties swathed. 
Wringing the waters from thine arborous hair ; 
41 



That all men's hearts, which do behold and see, 

Grow weak with their exceeding much desire. 

And tm*n to thee on fire, 

Enamom-ed with their utter wish of thee, 

Anadyomene ! 

What vine-outquickening life all creatures sup. 

Feel, for the air within its sapphire cup 

How it does leap, and twinkle headily ! 

Feel, for Earth's bosom pants, and heaves her 

scarfing sea ; 
And round and round in bacchanal rout reel the 

swift spheres intemperably ! 

My little-worlded self! the shadows pass 
In this thy sister-w orld, as in a glass. 
Of all processions that revolve in thee : 
Not only of cyclic Man 
Thou here discern' st the plan. 
Not only of cyclic Man, but of the cyclic Me. 
Not solely of Mortality's great years 
The reflex just appears, 

But thine own bosom's year, still circling round 
In ample and in ampler gyre 
Toward the far completion, wherewith crowned, 
Love unconsumed shall chant in his own furnace- 
fire. 
How many trampled and deciduous joys 
42 



Enrich thy soul for joys deciduous still. 

Before the distance shall fulfil 

Cyclic unrest with solemn equipoise ! 

Happiness is the shadow of things past, 

Which fools still take for that which is to be ! 

And not all foolishly : 

For all the past, read true, is prophecy. 

And all the firsts are hauntings of some Last, 

And all the springs are flash-lights of one 

Spring. 
Then leaf, and flower, and falless fruit 
Shall hang together on the unyellowing bough ; 
And silence shall be Music mute 
For her surcharged heart. Hush thou ! 
These things are far too sure that thou should'st 

dream 
Thereof, lest they appear as things that seem. 

Shade within shade ! for deeper in the glass 
Now other imaged meanings pass ; 
And as the man, the poet there is read. 
Winter with me, alack ! 
Winter on every hand I find : 
Soul, brain, and pulses dead ; 
The mind no further by the warm sense fed. 
The soul weak-stirring in the arid mind. 
More tearless-weak to flash itself abroad, 
43 



Than the earth's life beneath the frost-seorcheil 

sod. 
My lips have drought, and crack, 
By laving music long unvisited. 
Beneath the austere and macerating rime 
Draws back constricted in its icy urns 
The genial flame of Earth, and there 
With torment and with tension does prepare 
The lush disclosures of the vernal time. 
All joys draw inward to their icy urns, 
Tormented by constraining rime. 
And there 

With undelight and throe prepare 
The bounteous efflux of the vernal time. 
Nor less beneath compulsive Law 
Rebuked draw 

The numbed musics back upon my heart ; 
Whose yet-triumphant course I know 
And prevalent pulses forth shall start. 
Like cataracts that with thunderous hoof charge 

the disbanding snow. 
All power is bound 
In quickening refusal so ; 
And silence is the lair of sound ; 
In act its impulse to deliver. 
With fluctuance and quiver 
The endeavouring thew grows rigid ; 
44 



Strong 

From its retracted coil strikes the resilient song. 

Giver of spring. 

And song, and every young new thing ! 
Thou only seest in me, so stripped and bare, 
The lyric secret waiting to be born. 
The patient terra allowed 
Before it stretch and flutteringly unfold 
Its rumpled webs of amethyst-freaked, diaphan- 
ous gold. 
And what hard task abstracts me from delight. 
Filling with hopeless hope and dear despair 
The still-born day and parched fields of night. 
That my old way of song, no longer fair. 
For lack of serene care. 
Is grown a stony and a weed-choked plot. 
Thou only know'st aright. 
Thou only know'st, for I know not. 
How many songs must die that this may live ! 
And shall this most rash hope and fugitive. 
Fulfilled with beauty and with might 
In days whose feet are rumorous on the air. 
Make me forget to grieve 

For songs which might have been, nor ever were } 
Stern the denial, the travail slow. 
The struggling wall will scantly grow : 
45 



And though with that dread rite of sacrifice 
Ordained for during edifice. 
How long, how long ago ! 
Into that wall which will not thrive 
I build myself alive. 

Ah, who shall tell me, will the wall uprise ? 
Thou wilt not tell me, who dost only know ! 
Yet still in mind I keep. 

He which observes the wind shall hardly sow. 
He which regards the clouds shall hardly reap. 
Thine ancient way ! I give, 
Nor wit if I receive ; 

Risk all, who all would gain : and blindly. Be 
it so. 

" And bhndly," said I ? — No ! 

That saying I unsay : the wings 

Hear I not in praevenient winnowings 

Of coming songs, that lift my hair and stir it } 

What winds with music wet do the sweet storm 

foreshow ! 
Utter stagnation 

Is the solstitial slumber of the spirit. 
The blear and blank negation of all life : 
But these sharp questionings mean strife, and 

strife 
Is the negation of negation. 
46 



The thing from which I turn my troubled look^ 

Fearing the gods' rebuke ; 

That perturbation putting glory on. 

As is the golden vortex in the West 

Over the foundered sun ; 

That — but low breathe it, lest the Nemesis 

Unchild me, vaunting this — 

Is bliss, the hid, hugged, swaddled bliss ! 

O youngling Joy carest ! 

That on my now first-mothered breast 

Pliest the strange wonder of thine infant lip. 

What this aghast surprise of keenest panging, 

Wherefrom I blench, and cry thy soft mouth rest ? 

Ah hold, withhold, and let the sweet mouth 

slip ! 
So, with such pain, recoils the woolly dam. 
Unused, affrighted, from her yeanling lamb : 
I, one with her in cruel fellowship. 
Marvel what unmaternal thing I am. 

Nature, enough ! within thy glass 
Too many and too stern the shadows pass. 
In this delighted season, flaming 
For thy resurrection-feast. 
Ah, more I think the long ensepulture cold. 
Than stony winter rolled 
From the unsealed mouth of the holy East ; 
47 



The snowdrop's saintly stoles less heed 

Than the snow-cloistered penance of the seed. 

'Tis the weak flesh reclaiming 

Against the ordinance 

Which yet for just the accepting spirit scans. 

Earth waits, and patient heaven, 

Self-bonded God doth wait 

Thrice-promulgated bans 

Of his fair nuptial-date. 

And power is man's. 

With that great word of "wait," 

To still the sea of tears. 

And shake the iron heart of Fate. 

In that one word is strong 

An else, alas, much-mortal song ; 

With sight to pass the frontier of all spheres. 

And voice which does my sight such wrong. 

Not without fortitude I wait 
The dark majestical ensuit 
Of destiny, nor peevish rate 
Calm-knowledged Fate. 

J, that no part have in the time's bragged way 
And its loud bruit ; 
I, in this house so rifted, marred. 
So ill to live in, hard to leave ; 
I, so star-weary, over-warred, 
48 



That have no joy in this your day — 

Rather foul fume englutting, that of clay 

Confounds all ray — 

But only stand aside and grieve ; 

I yet have sight beyond the smoke. 

And kiss the gods' feet, though they wreak 

Upon me stroke and again stroke ; 

And this my seeing is not weak. 

The Woman I behold, whose vision seek 

All eyes and know not ; t'ward whom climb 

The steps o' the world, and beats all wing of 

rhyme. 
And knows not ; 'twixt the sun and moon 
Her inexpressible front enstarred 
Tempers the wrangling spheres to tune ; 
Their divergent harmonies 
Concluded in the concord of her eyes, 
And vestal dances of her glad regard. 
I see, which fretteth with surmise 
Much heads grown unsagacious-grey. 
The slow aim of wise-hearted Time, 
Which folded cycles within cycles cloak : 
W^e pass, we pass, we pass ; this does not pass 

away. 
But holds the furrowing earth still harnessed to 

its yoke. 
The stars still write their golden purposes 
D 49 



On heaven's high palimpsest, and no man sees, 
Nor any therein Daniel ; I do hear 
From the revolving year 
A voice which cries : 
" All dies ; 

Lo, how all dies ! O seer. 
And all things too arise : 
All dies, and all is born ; 

But each resurgent morn, behold, more near the 
Perfect Morn." 

Firm is the man, and set beyond the cast 
Of Fortune's game, and the iniquitous hour, 
Whose falcon soul sits fast. 
And not intends her high sagacious tour 
Or ere the quarry sighted ; who looks past 
To slow much sweet from little instant sour. 
And in the first does always see the last. 

Francis Thompson. 



50 



BOOK III 
THE LOVER 



51 



Eve in Eden ,0 -c^ ^o^ ^:> .c?- 

a ^\ WEET is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet, 
VsJ^ With charm of earhest birds ; pleasant the 

sun, 
When first on this deUghtful land he spreads 
His orient lieams, on herb, tree, fruit, and 

flower, 
Glist'ring with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth 
After soft showers ; and sweet the coming on 
Of grateful evening mild : then silent night, 
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon, 
And these the gems of heav'n, her starry train : 
But neither breath of Morn when she ascends 
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun 
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower, 
Glist'ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers ^ 
Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night. 
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon. 
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet. 
53 



But wherefore all night long shine these? for 

whom 
This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes? " 

To whom our general ancestor replied : 
" Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep : 
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold 
Both day and night : how often from, the steep 
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard 
Celestial voices to the midnight air. 
Sole, or responsive each to other's note. 
Singing their great Creator ? oft in bands 
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk. 
With heav'nly touch of instrumental sounds 
In full harmonic number joined, their songs 
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heaven." 

Thus talking, hand in hand alone they passed 
On to their blissful bower ; it was a place 
Chosen by the sov'reign planter, when He framed 
All things to man's delightful use : the roof 
Of thickest covert was inwoven shade. 
Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew 
Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side 
Acanthus and each odorous bushy shrub 
Fenced up the verdant wall, each beauteous 

flower. 
Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine, 
54 



Reared high their flourished heads between, and 

wrought 
Mosaic ; under foot the violet, 
Crocus, and hyacinth with rich inlay 
Broidered the ground, more coloured than with 

stone 
Of costliest emblem : other creature here, 
Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none ; 
Such was their awe of man. In shadier bower 
More sacred and sequestered, though but feigned, 
Pan or Sylvanus never slept ; nor nymph 
Nor Faunus haunted. Here, in close recess. 
With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs, 
Espoused Eve decked first her nuptial bed, 
And heav'nly choirs the Hymenaean sung, 
What day the genial angel to our sire 
Brought her in naked beauty more adorned, 
More lovely than Pandora, whom the Gods 
Endowed with all their gifts ; and O, too like 
In sad event, when to the unwiser son 
Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnared 
Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged 
On him who had stole Jove's authentic fire. 

Thus, at their shady lodge arrived, both stood. 
Both turned, and under open sky adored 
The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n 
Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, 
55 



And starry pole. " Thou also mad'st the night. 
Maker Omnipotent, and thou the day. 
Which we, in our appointed work employed. 
Have finished, happy in our mutual help 
And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss 
Ordained by thee, and this delicious place 
For us too large, where thy abundance wants 
Partakers, and uncropt falls to the ground. 
But thou hast promised from us two a race 
To fill the earth, who shall with us extol 
Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake. 
And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep." 

Milton. 



A Song 



G' 



O, lovely Rose ! 

Tell her, that wastes her time 
and me. 
That now she knows. 
When I resemble her to thee. 
How sweet and fair she seems to be. 

Tell her that's young 
And shuns to have her graces spied. 

That hadst thou sprung 
In deserts, where no men abide. 
Thou must have uncommended died. 
56 



Small is the worth 
Of beauty from the light retired : 

Bid her come forth, 
Suffer herself to be desired, 
And not blush so to be admired. 

Then die ! that she 
The common fate of all things rare 

May read in thee : 
How small a part of time they share 
That are so wondrous sweet and fair ! 

Waller. 



A Paean of Love -.o ^o ^o^ ^o ^c?- 

" "TAOUBT you to whom my Muse these notes 

jL^ intendeth ; 
Which now my breast o'ercharged to ' music 
lendeth } 

To you ! to you ! all song of praise is due : 
Only in you my song begins and endeth. 

^^Who hath the eyes which marry state with 

pleasure, 
Who keeps the keys of Nature's chiefest treasure ? 

To you ! to you ! all song of praise is due : 
Only for you the heaven forgat all measure. 
57, 



''Who hath the hps, where wit in fairness 

reign eth ? 
Who womankind at once both decks and staineth ? 

To you ! to you ! all song of praise is due : 
Only by you Cupid his crown maintaineth. 

'' Who hath the feet, whose steps all sweetness 

planteth ? 
Who else ; for whom Fame worthy trumpets 

wanteth ? 
To you ! to you ! all song of praise is due : 
Only to you her sceptre Venus granteth. 

*' Who hath the breast, whose milk doth passions 

nourish ? 
Whose grace is such, that when it chides doth 

cherish ? 
To you ! to you ! all song of praise is due : 
Only through you the tree of life doth flourish. 

''Who hath the hand, which without stroke 

subdueth ? 
Who long dead beauty with increase reneweth ? 

To you ! to you ! all song of praise is due : 
Only at you all envy hopeless rueth. 

58 



" Who hath the hah-^ which loosest fastest tieth ? 
Who makes a man live then glad when he dieth ? 

To you ! to you ! all song of praise is due : 
Only of you the flatterer never lieth. 

" Who hath the voice, which soul from senses 

sunders ? 
Whose force but yours the bolts of beauty 

thunders ? 
To you ! to you ! all song of praise is due : 
Only with you not miracles are wonders. 

" Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes 

intendeth ? 
Which now my breast o'ercharged to music 
lendeth ? 
To you ! to you ! all song of praise is due : 
Only in you my song begins and endeth." 

Sir Philip Sidney. 



Ask me no more <::> ^> xi:> <:> 

ASK me no more where Jove bestows, 
When June is past, the fading rose 
For in your beauties' orient deep 
These flowers, as in their causes, sleep. 

59 



Ask me no more^ whither do stray 
The golden atoms of the day ; 
For in pure love Heaven did prepare 
Those powders to enrich your hair. 

Ask me no more, whither doth haste 
The nightingale, when May is past ; 
For in your sweet dividing throat 
She winters and keeps warm her note. 

Ask me no more, where those stars light, 
That downwards fall in dead of night ; 
For in your eyes they sit, and there 
Fixed become, as in their sphere. 

Ask me no more, if East or West 
The phoenix builds her spicy nest ; 
For unto you at last she flies, 
And in your fragrant bosom dies. 

Carew. 



A Song 



GO not, happy da}', 
From the shining fields. 
Go not, happy day, 
Till the maiden yields. 
60 



Rosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks, 

And a rose her mouth. 
When the happy Yes 

Falters from her hps. 
Pass and blush the news 

Over glowing ships ; 
Over blowing seas, 

Over seas at rest. 
Pass the happy news. 

Blush it thro' the West ; 
Till the red man dance. 

By his red cedar-tree, 
And the red man's babe 

Leap, beyond the sea. 
Blush from West to East, 

Blush from East to West, 
Till the West is East, 

Blush it thro' the West. 
Rosy is the West, 

Rosy is the South, 
Roses are her cheeks. 

And a rose her mouth. 

Tennyson. 



6i 



The Passionate Shepherd to his Love o* 

COME live with me and be my Love, 
And we will all the pleasures prove 
That hills and valleys, dale and field, 
And all the craggy mountains yield. 

There will we sit upon the rocks 
And see the shepherds feed their flocks. 
By shallow^ rivers, to whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. 

There will I make thee beds of roses 
And a thousand fragrant posies, 
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle 
Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle. 

A gown made of the finest wool, 
Which from our pretty lambs we pull. 
Fair lined slippers for the cold, 
With buckles of the purest gold. 

A belt of straw and ivy-buds 
With coral clasps and amber studs : 
And if these pleasures may thee move, 
Come live with me and be my Love. 
62 



Thy silver dishes for thy meat 
As precious as the gods do eat, 
Shall on an ivory table be 
Prepared each day for thee and me. 

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing 
For thy delight each May morning : 
If these delights thy mind may move. 
Then live with me and be my Love. 

Marlowe. 



A Cedar of Lebanon 



I HAVE led her home, my love, my only friend. 
There is none like her, none. 
And never yet so warmly ran my blood 
And sweetly, on and on 
Calming itself to the long-wish'd-for end. 
Full to the banks, close on the promised good. 

II. 
None like her, none. 

Just now the dry-tongued laurels' pattering talk 
Seem'd her light foot along the garden walk. 
And shook my heart to think she comes once more ; 

63 



But even then I heard her close the door. 

The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is gone. 



There is none like her, none. 

Nor will be when our summers have deceased. 

O, art thou sighing for Lebanon 

In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious 

East, 
Sighing for Lebanon, 

Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased. 
Upon a pastoral slope as fair. 
And looking to the South, and fed 
With honey'd rain and delicate air. 
And haunted by the starry head 
Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate. 
And made my life a perfumed altar-flame ; 
And over whom thy darkness must have spread 
With such delight as theirs of old, thy great 
Forefathers of the thornless garden, there 
Shadowing the snow-limb'd Eve from whom she 

came. 



Here will I lie, while these long branches sway. 
And you fair stars that crown a happy day 
Go in and out as if at merry play, 
64 



Who am no more so all forlorn^ 

As when it seem'd far better to be born 

To labour and the mattock-harden' d hand, 

Than nursed at ease and brought to understand 

A sad astrology, the boundless plan 

That makes you tyrants in your iron skies, 

Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes. 

Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand 

His nothingness into man. 



v. 

But now shine on, and what care I, 
Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl 
The countercharm of space and hollow sky, 
And do accept my madness, and would die 
To save from some slight shame one simple girl. 



VI. 

Would die ; for sullen-seeming Death may give 
More life to Love than is or ever was 
In our low world, where yet 'tis sweet to live. 
Let no one ask me how it came to pass ; 
It seems that I am happy, that to me 
A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, 
A purer sapphire melts into the sea. 
E 6s 



VII. 

Not die ; but live a life of truest breathy 
And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs. 
O^ why should Love, like men in drinking-songs. 
Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death ? 
Make answer, Maud my bliss, 
Maud made my Maud by that long loving kiss. 
Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this .'* 
" The dusky strand of Death inwoven here 
With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more 
dear." 

Tennyson. 



Song <:> ^^> ^o <:?*<?■ *£:> 

O MISTRESS mine, where are you roaming ? 
O, stay and hear, your true love's coming 
That can sing both high and low : 
Trip no further, pretty sweeting ! 
Journeys end in lovers meeting 

Every wise man's son doth know. 

What is love } 'Tis not hereafter : 
Present mirth hath present laughter. 
What's to come is still unsure. 
66 



In delay there lies no plenty, 
Then come, kiss me, sweet and twenty, 
Youth's a stuff will not endure. 

Shakespeare. 

Song <^ <s> <s> <:> xis> <:> 

MOVE eastward, happy earth, and leave 
Yon orange sunset waning slow : 
From fringes of the faded eve, 

O, happy planet, eastward go ; 
Till over thy dark shoulder glow 

Thy silver sister-world, and rise 
To glass herself in dewy eyes 
That watch me from the glen below. 

Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly borne. 
Dip forward under starry light. 

And move me to my marriage-morn, 
And round again to happy night. 

Tennyson. 

Lorenzo and Jessica <^ x^t* <^ <s> 

Lor. "^ I ^HE moon shines bright : in such a night 

X as this. 
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees 
And they did make no noise, in such a night 
67 



Troilus methinks mounted the Troyan walls 

And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents, 

Where Cressid lay that night. 

Jess. In such a night 

Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew 

And saw the lion's shadow ere himself 

And ran dismayed away. 

Lor. In such a night 

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand 

Upon the wild sea-banks and waft her love 

To come again to Carthage. 

Jess. In such a night 

Medea gathered the enchanted herbs 

That did renew old ^son. 

Lor. In such a night 

Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew : 

And with an unthrift love did run from Venice 

As far as Belmont. 

Jess. In such a night 

Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her w ell, 

Stealing her soul with many vows of faith 

And ne'er a true one. 

Lor. In such a night 

Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew, 

Slander her love, and he forgave it her. 



68 



How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 
Here we will sit and let the sounds of music 
Creep in our ears : soft stillness and the night 
Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven 
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold : 
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st 
But in his motion like an angel sings, 
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ; 
Such harmony is in immortal souls ; 
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay 
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. 

Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice). 



Under the Stars <:> <:p* <c> <:> <::: 

IS that enchanted moan only the swell 
Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay ? 
And hark the clock within, the silver knell 
Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white, 
And died to live, long as my pulses play ; 
But now by this my love has closed her sight 
And given false death her hand, and stol'n away 
To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell 
Among the fragments of the golden day. 
May nothing there her maiden grace affright ! 

69 



Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell. 

My bride to be, my evermore delight, 

My own heart's heart, my ownest own, farewell ; 

It is but for a little space I go : 

And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell 

Beat to the noiseless music of the night I 

Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow 

Of your soft splendours that you look so bright? 

I have climbed nearer out of lonely Hell. 

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, 

Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell. 

Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe 

That seems to draw — but it shall not be so : 

Let all be well, be well. 

Tennyson. 



To Night ^o^ ^o ^c:> ^c^ >i^ < 

SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, 
Spirit of Night ! 
Out of the misty eastern cave. 
Where, all the long and lone daylight. 
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, 
Which make thee terrible and dear, — 
Swift be thy flight ! 
70 



Wrap thy form in a mantle gi*ay, 

Star-inwrought ; 
Bhnd with thine hair the eyes of Day ; 
Kiss her mitil she be wearied out, 
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land. 
Touching all with thine opiate wand — 

Come, long-sought ! 

When I arose and saw the dawn, 

I sighed for thee ; 
When light rode high, and the dew was gone. 
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree. 
And the weary Day turned to his rest. 
Lingering like an unloved guest, 

I sighed for thee. 

Thy brother Death came, and cried, 

Wouldst thou me ? 
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed. 
Murmured like a noontide bee. 
Shall I nestle near thy side ? 
Wouldst thou me ? — And I replied, 

No, not thee ! 

Death will come when thou art dead,. 

Soon, too soon — 
Sleep will come when thou art fled ; 
71 



Of neither would I ask the boon 
I ask of thee^ beloved Night — 
Swift be thine approaching flight, 
Come soon, soon ! 

Shelley. 



The Departure 



AND on her lover's arm she leant, 
And round her waist she felt it fold, 
And far across the hills they went 

In that new world which is the old : 
Across the hills, and far aM^ay 

Beyond their utmost purple rim. 
And deep into the dying day 

The happy princess followed him. 

IL 

" I'd sleep another hundred years, 

O love, for such another kiss " ; 
" O wake for ever, love," she hears, 

"O love, 'twas such as this and this." 
And o'er them many a sliding star, 

And many a merry wind was borne. 
And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar. 

The twilight melted into morn. 
72 



I " 

I 



'' O eyes long laid in happy sleep ! " 

" O happy sleep, that lightly fled ! 
" O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep 

'' O love, thy kiss would wake the dead 
And o'er them many a flowing range 

Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark. 
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change, 

The twilight died into the dark. 

IV. 

*' A hundred summers ! can it be ? 

And whither goest thou, tell me where ? " 
" O seek my father's court with me, 

For there are greater wonders there." 
And o'er the hills, and far away 

Beyond their utmost purple rim. 
Beyond the night, across the day, 

Thro' all the world she follow'd him. 

Tennyson (fro?n " The Day-Dream "). 

She Avas a Phantom of Delight ^^ -^ ^ 

SHE was a Phantom of delight 
When first she gleamed upon my sight 
A lovely apparition, sent 
To be a moment's ornament ; 
73 



Her eyes as stars of twilight fair ; 
Like Twilight's-, too, her dusky hair ; 
But all things else about her drawn 
From May-time and the cheerful dawn ; 
A dancing shape, an image gay, 
To haunt, to startle, and waylay. 

1 saw her upon nearer view, 

A spirit, yet a woman too ! 

Her household motions light and free. 

And steps of virgin liberty ; 

A countenance in which did meet 

Sweet records, promises as sweet ; 

A creature not too bright or good 

For human nature's daily food ; 

For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles. 

And now I see with eye serene 
The very pulse of the machine ; 
A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
A traveller betwixt life and death ; 
The reason firm, the temperate will, 
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill, 
A perfect woman, nobly planned. 
To warn, to comfort, and command : 
74 



And yet a spirit stilly and bright 
With something of an angel-light. 

Wordsworth. 



The Lady of the Lambs e> ,i> <c^ . 

SHE walks — ^the lady of my delight — 
A shepherdess of sheep. 
Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them 
white ; 
She guards them from the steep. 
She feeds them on the fragrant height, 
And folds them in for sleep. 

She roams maternal hills and bright. 

Dark valleys safe and deep. 
Into that tender breast at night 

The chastest stars may peep. 
She w^alks — the lady of my delight — 

A shepherdess of sheep. 

She holds her little thoughts in sight, 
Though gay they run and leap. 

She is so circumspect and right ; 
She has her soul to keep. 

She walks — the lady of my delight — 

A shepherdess of sheep. 

Alice Mevnell. 

75 



SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day ? 
Thou art more lovely and more temperate : 
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 
And summer's lease hath all too short a date : 
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 

And often is his gold complexion dimmed ; 
And every fair from fair sometime declines, 

By chance or nature's changing course un- 
trimmed ; 
But thy eternal summer shall not fade. 

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest ; 
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, 

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st : 
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see. 
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. 

Shakespeare. 



Andrea Del Sarto <:><:> ^^ <::> <:p» 

Called the " Faultless Painter." 

BUT do not let us quarrel any more, 
No, my Lucrezia ; bear with me for once : 
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. 
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart ? 
I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear, 
Treat his own subject after his own way, 

76 



Fix his own time, accept too his own price, 
And shut the money into this small hand 
When next it takes mine. Will it ? tenderly ? 
Oh, ril content him, — but to-morrow. Love ! 
I often am much wearier than you think. 
This evening more than usual, and it seems 
As if — forgive now — should you let me sit 
Here by the window with your hand in mine 
And look a half hour forth on Fiesole, 
Both of one mind, as married people use. 
Quietly, quietly, the evening through, 
I might get up to-morrow to my work 
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 
To-morrow how you shall be glad for this ! 
Your soft hand is a woman of itself. 
And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside. 
Don't count the time lost, either ; you must serve 
For each of the five pictures we require — 
It saves a model. So ! keep looking so — 
My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds : 
— How could you ever prick those perfect ears, 
Even to put the pearl there ! oh, so sweet — 
My face, my moon, my everybody's moon. 
Which everybody looks on and calls his. 
And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn, 
W^hile she looks — no one's : very dear, no less ! 
You smile ? why, there's my picture ready made. 
77 



There's what we painters call our harmony ! 
A common greyness silvers everything, — 
All in a twilight, you and I alike 
— You, at the point of your first pride in me 
(That's gone you know), — but I, at every point ; 
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down 
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 
There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top ; 
That length of convent-wall across the way 
Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside ; 
The last monk leaves the garden ; days decrease 
And autumn grows, autumn in everything. 
Eh ? the whole seems to fall into a shape 
As if I saw alike my work and self 
And all that I was born to be and do, 
A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. 
How strange now, looks the life He makes us lead! 
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are : 
I feel He laid the fetter : let it lie ! 
This chamber for example — turn your head — 
All that's behind us ! you don't understand 
Nor care to understand about my art, 
But you can hear at least when people speak ; 
And that cartoon, the second from the door 
— It is the thing. Love ! so such things should be — 
Behold Madonna, I am bold to say. 
I can do with my pencil what I know, 
78 



What I see, what at bottom of my heart 

I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 

Do easily, too — when I say perfectly 

I do not boast, perhaps : yourself are judge 

Who listened to the Legate's talk last week, 

And just as much they used to say in France. 

At any rate 'tis easy, all of it, 

No sketches first, no studies, that's long past — 

I do what many dream of all their lives 

— Dream ? strive to do, and agonise to do, 

And fail in doing. I could count twenty such 

On twice your fingers, and not leave this town. 

Who strive — you don't know how the others strive 

To paint a little thing like that you smeared 

Carelessly passing with your robes afloat, 

Yet do much less, so much less, some one says, 

(I know his name, no matter) so much less ! 

Well, less is more, Lucrezia ! I am judged. 

There burns a truer light of God in them. 

In their vexed, beating, stuffed and stopped-up 

brain. 
Heart, or whatever else, than goes on to j^rompt 
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of 

mine. 
Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I 

know. 
Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, 
79 



Enter and take their place there sure enough, 
Though they come back and cannot tell the world. 
My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 
The sudden blood of these men ! at a word — 
Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. 
I, painting from myself and to myself. 
Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame 
Or their praise either. Somebody remarks 
Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, 
His hue mistaken — what of that ? or else. 
Rightly traced and well ordered — what of that ? 
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 
Or what's a Heaven for ? all is silver-grey 
Placid and perfect with my art — the worse ! 
I know both what I want and what might gain — 
And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 
"Had I been two, another and myself. 
Our head would have o'erlooked the world ! " No 

doubt. 
Yonder' s a work, now, of that famous youth 
The Urbinate who died five years ago. 
('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) 
Well, I can fancy how he did it all. 
Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see. 
Reaching, that Heaven might so replenish him, 
Above and through his art — for it gives way ; 
That arm is wrongly put — and there again — 
80 



A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, 

Its body, so to speak ! its soul is right, 

He means right — that, a child may understand. 

Still, what an arm ! and I could alter it. 

But all the play, the insight and the stretch — - 

Out of me ! out of me ! And wherefore out ? 

Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul. 

We might have risen to Rafael, I and you. 

Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think — 

More than I merit, yes, by many times. 

But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow, 

And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth. 

And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 

The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare — 

Had you, with these the same, but brought a 

mind ! 
Some women do so. Had the mouth there urffed 
'^ God and the glory ! never care for gain. 
The present by the future, what is that ? 
Live for fame, side by side with Angelo — 
Rafael is waiting. Up to God all three ! " 
I might have done it for you. So it seems — 
Perhaps not. AH is as God over-rules. 
Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; 
The rest avail not. Why do I need you ? 
What wife had Rafael, or has Angelo .'* 
In this world, who can do a thing, will not — 
F 8i 



And who would do it^ cannot, I perceive : 

Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the 

power — 
And thus we half-men struggle. At the end, 
God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 
'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict. 
That I am something underrated here, 
Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. 
I dared not, do you know, leave home all day, 
For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. 
The best is when they pass and look aside ; 
But they speak sometimes ; I must bear it all. 
Well may they speak ! That Francis, that first 

time. 
And that long festal year at Fontainebleau ! 
I surely then could sometimes leave the ground. 
Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear. 
In that humane great monarch's golden look, — 
One finger in his beard or twisted curl 
Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile. 
One arm about my shoulder, round my neck. 
The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, 
I painting proudly with his breath on me. 
All his court round him, seeing with his eyes. 
Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls 
Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, — 
And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond, 
82 



This in the background, waiting on my work. 
To crown the issue with a last reward ! 
A good time, was it not, my kingly days ? 
And had you not grown restless — but I know — 
'Tis done and past ; 'twas right, my instinct said ; 
Too live the life grew, golden and not grey — 
And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt 
Out of the grange whose four walls make his 

world. 
How could it end in any other way ? 
You called me, and I came home to your heart. 
The triumph was to have ended there — then if 
I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost ? 
Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold. 
You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine ! 
" Rafael did this, Andrea painted that — 
The Roman's is the better when you pray, 
But still the other's Virgin was his wife — " 
Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge 
Both pictures in your presence ^ clearer grows 
My better fortune, I resolve to think. 
For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives. 
Said one day Angelo, his very self. 
To Rafael ... I have known it all these years . . 
(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts 
Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see. 
Too lifted up in heart because of it) 

83 



" Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub 

Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how. 

Who, were he set to plan and execute 

As you are pricked on by your popes and kings. 

Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours ! " 

To Rafael's ! — And indeed the arm is wrong. 

I hardly dare — yet, only you to see. 

Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line should 

go! 
Ay, but the soul ! he's Rafael ! rub it out ! 
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, 
(What he ? why, who but Michael Angelo ? 
Do you forget already words like those ?) 
If really there was such a chance, so lost, 
Is, whether you're — not grateful — but more 

pleased. 
Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed ! 
This hour has been an hour ! Another smile ? 
If you would sit thus by me every night 
I should work better, do you comprehend } 
I mean that I should earn more, give you more. 
See, it is settled dusk now ; there's a star ; 
Morello's gone, the watch-lights shov/ the wall, 
The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 
Come from the wdndow. Love, — come in, at last. 
Inside the melancholy little house 
We built to be so gay with. God is just. 
84 



King Francis may forgive me. Oft at nights 
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out, 
The v/alls become illumined, brick from brick 
Distinct, instead of mortar fierce bright gold, 
That gold of his I did cement them with ! 
Let us but love each other. Must you go ? 
That Cousin here again ? he waits outside } 
Must see you — you, and not with me .^ Those 

loans ! 
More gaming debts to pay ? you smiled for that ? 
Well, let smiles buy me ! have you more to spend ? 
While hand and eye and something of a heart 
Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth ? 
I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit 
The grey remainder of the evening out, 
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly 
How I could paint were I but back in France, 
One picture, just one more — the Virgin's face, 
Not yours this time ! I want you at my side 
To hear them — that is, Michael Angelo — 
Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. 
Will you ? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. 
I take the subjects for his corridor. 
Finish the portrait out of hand — there, there, 
And throw him in another thing or two 
If he demurs ; the whole should prove enough 
To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, 

85 



What's better and what's all I care about, 

Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff. 

Love, does that please you ? Ah, but what does 

he, 
The Cousin ! what does he to please you more ? 

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. 
I regret little, I would change still less. 
Since there my past life lies, why alter it ? 
The very wrong to Francis ! it is true 
I took his coin, was tempted and complied, 
And built this house and sinned, and all is said. 
My father and my mother died of want. 
Well, had I riches of my own ? you see 
How one gets rich ! Let each one bear his lot. 
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they 

died : 
And I have laboured somewhat in my time 
And not been paid profusely. Some good son 
Paint my two hundred pictures — let him try ! 
No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. 

Yes, 
You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. 
7 his must suffice me here. What would one have ? 
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more 

chance — 
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, 
86 



Meted on each side by the angel's reed, 
For Leonard, Rafael, Angelo and me 
To cover — the three first without a wife, 
While I have mine ! So — still they overcome 
Because there's still Lucrezia, — as I choose. 

Again the Cousin's whistle ! Go, my Love. 

Robert Browning. 

O that 'twere possible " ^^:> -^i^ ^o 

I. 

OTHAT 'twere possible 
After long grief and pain 
To find the arms of my true love 
Round me once again ! 

II. 
When I was wont to meet her 
In the silent woody places 
By the home that gave me birth, 
W^e stood tranced in long embraces 
Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter 
Than anything on earth. 

III. 

A shadow flits before me. 
Not thou, but like to thee : 

87 



Ah Christ, that it were possible 

For one short hour to see 

The souls we loved, that they might 

tell us 
What and where they be. 



It leads me forth at evening, 

It lightly winds and steals 

In a cold white robe before me, 

When all my spirit reels 

At the shouts, the leagues of lights. 

And the roaring of the wheels. 

V. 

Half the night I waste in sighs, 
Half in dreams I sorrow after 
The delight of early skies ; 
In a wakeful doze I sorrow 
For the hand, the lips, the eyes. 
For the meeting of the morrow. 
The delight of happy laughter. 
The delight of low replies. 



'Tis a morning pure and sweet 
And a dewy splendour falls 
88 



On the little flower that clings 
To the turrets and the walls ; 
'Tis a morning pure and sweet, 
And the light and shadow fleet ; 
She is walking in the meadow, 
And the woodland echo rings ; 
In a moment we shall meet ; 
She is singing in the meadow 
And the rivulet at her feet 
Ripples on in light and shadow 
To the ballad that she sings. 



VII. 

Do I hear her sing as of old, 
My bird with the shining head, 
My own dove with the tender eye ? 
But there rings on a sudden a passionate 

There is some one dying or dead. 
And a sullen thunder is rolled ; 
For a tumult shakes the city, 
And I wake, my dream is fled ; 
In the shuddering dawn, behold, 
Without knowledge, without pity, 
By the curtains of my bed 
That abiding phantom cold. 
89 



VTII. 

Get thee hence, nor come again, 
Mix not memory with doubt, 
Pass, thou death-Uke type of pain. 
Pass and cease to move about ! 
'Tis the blot upon the brain 
That will show itself without. 

IX. 

Then I rise, the eavedrops fall. 
And the yellow vapours choke 
The great city sounding wide ; 
The day comes, a dull red ball 
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke 
On the misty river-tide. 

X. 

Thro' the hubbub of the market 

I steal, a wasted frame, 

It crosses here, it crosses there. 

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud, 

The shadow still the same ; 

And on my heavy eyelids 

My anguish hangs like shame. 

XI. 

Also for her that met me 
That heard me softly call, 
90 



Came glimmering thro' the laurels 
At the quiet evenfall^ 
In the garden by the turrets 
Of the old manorial hall. 



Would the happy spirit descend 
From the realms of light and song. 
In the chamber or the street^ 
As she looks among the blest. 
Should I fear to greet my friend 
Or to say, " Forgive the wrong," 
Or to ask her, " Take me, sweet. 
To the regions of thy rest ? " 

XIII. 

But the broad light glares and beats 

And the shadow flits and fleets 

And will not let me be ; 

And I loathe the squares and streets. 

And the faces that one meets. 

Hearts with no love for me : 

Always I long to creep 

Into some still cavern deep, 

There to weep, and weep, and weep 

My whole soul out to thee, 

Tennyson. 

91 



A Paean ^c> ..^ ^i:> <^ xiP" <?- 

" T IVE in these conquering leaves : live all 

J — J the same ; 
And walk through all tongues one triumphant 

flame ; 
Live here;, great heart; and love, and die, and 

kill; 
And bleed, and wound, and yield, and conquer 

still. 
Let this immortal life where'er it comes 
Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms. 
Let mystic deaths wait on't ; and wise souls be 
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee. 
O sweet incendiary ! show here thy art. 
Upon this carcase of a hard cold heart ; 
Let all thy scatter'd shafts of light, that play 
Among the leaves of thy large books of day, 
Combin'd against this breast at once break in. 
And take away from me myself and sin ; 
This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be 
And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me. 
O thou undaunted daughter of desires ! 
By all thy pow'r of lights and fires ; 
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove ; 
By all thy lives and deaths of love ; 
By thy large draughts of intellectual day ; 
92 



And by thy thirsts of love more large than they ; 

By all thy brim-fiird bowls of fierce desire ; 

By thy last morning's draught of liquid fire ; 

By the full kingdom of that final kiss 

That seized thy parting soul, and seal'd thee his 

By all the heavens thou hast in him, 

(Fair sister of the seraphim) 

By all of him we have in thee ; 

Leave nothing of myself in me. 

Let me so read thy life, that I 

Unto all life of mine may die." 

Crashaw. 



To 



ONE word is too often profaned 
For me to profane it, 
One feeling too falsely disdained 

For thee to disdain it ; 
One hope is too like despair 

For prudence to smother. 
And pity from thee more dear 
Than that from another. 

93 



II. 
1 can give not what men call love^ 

But wilt thou accept not 
The worship the heart lifts above 

And the Heavens reject not, — 
The desire of the moth for the star, 

Of the night for the morrow, 
The devotion to something afar 

From the sphere of our sorrow ? 

Shelley. 

To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars «^ 

TELL me not, Sweet, I am unkind 
That from the nunnery 
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind. 
To war and arms I fly. 

True, a new mistress now I chase. 

The first foe in the field ; 
And with a stronger faith embrace 

A sword, a horse, a shield. 

Yet this inconstancy is such 

As you too shall adore ; 

I could not love thee. Dear, so much. 

Loved I not Honour more. 

Lovelace. 

94 



On Receiving a Monthly Rose ^> ^> ■< 

P^.STUM ! thy roses long ago, 
All roses far above, 
Twice in the year were call'd to blow 
And braid the locks of Love. 

He saw the city sink in dust, 

It's roses' roots decay'd, 
And cried in sorrow, '' Find I must 

Another for ray braid." 

First Cyprus, then the Syrian shore 

To Pharpar's lucid rill, 
Did those two large dark eyes explore, 

But wanted something still. 

Damascus filled his heart with joy. 

So sweet her roses were ! 
He cull'd them ; but the wayward boy 

Thought them ill worth his care. 

" 1 want them every month," he cried, 

" I want them every hour ; 
Perennial rose, and none beside. 

Henceforth shall be my flower." 

Landor. 

95 



Till the Rocks Melt wi' the Sun ^> -^ 

OMY Luve's like a red, red rose 
That's newly sprung in June ; 

my Luve's like the melodie 
That's sweetly played in tune. 

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, 

So deep in luve am I ; 
And I will luve thee still, my dear, 

Till a' the seas gang dry : 

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, 
And the rocks melt wi' the sun ; 

1 will luve thee still, my dear. 

While the sands o' life shall run. 

And fare thee weel, my only Luve ! 

And fare thee weel awhile ! 
And I will come again, my Luve, 

Tho' it were ten thousand mile. 

Burns. 

Song .,c> ^c?' <?^ <?^ ^c^ 

YOU'LL love me yet ! — and I can tarry 
Your love's protracted growing. 
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry 
From seeds of April's sowing. 

96 



I plant a heartfiill now — some seed 

At least is sure to strike 
And yield — what you'll not pluck indeed. 

Not love, but, may be, like ! 

You'll look at least on love's remains, 

A grave's one violet : 
Your look ? — that pays a thousand pains. 

What's death ? — You'll love me yet. 

Robert Browning. 

Evelyn Hope <s> <s> .i:^ <::> ^ 

I. 

BEAUTIFUL Evelyn Hope is dead ! 
Sit and watch by her side an hour. 
That is her book-shelf, this her bed ; 

She plucked that piece of geranium -flower. 
Beginning to die too, in the glass. 

Little has yet been changed, I think — 
The shutters are shut, no light may pass 
Save two long rays thro' the hinge's chink. 



Sixteen years old when she died ! 

Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name- 
It was not her time to love : beside, 

Her life had many a hope and aim, 
G 97 



Duties enough and little cares, 
And now was quiet, now astir — 

Till God's hand beckoned unawares, 
And the sweet white brow is all of her, 



III. 

Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope ? 

What, your soul was pure and true, 
The good stars met in your horoscope, 

Made you of spirit, fire and dew — 
xA.nd just because I was thrice as old, 

And our paths in the world diverged so wide, 
Each was nought to each, must I be told ? 

We were fellow mortals, nought beside ? 



No, indeed ! for God above 

Is great to grant, as mighty to make. 
And creates the love to reward the love, — 

I claim you still, for my own love's sake ! 
Delayed it may be for more lives yet, 

Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few- 
Much is to learn and much to forget 

Ere the time be come for taking you. 

98 



V. 

But the time will come, — at last it will, 

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say. 
In the lower earth, in the years long still, 

That body and soul so pure and gay ? 
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine. 

And your mouth of your own geranium's red- 
And what you would do with me, in fine. 

In the new life come in the old one's stead. 

VI. 

I have lived, I shall say, so much since then. 

Given up myself so many times. 
Gained me the gains of various men. 

Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes ; 
Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope. 

Either I missed or itself missed me — 
And I want and find you, Evelyn Hope ! 

What is the issue ? let us see ! 

VII. 

I loved you, Evelyn, all the while ; 

My heart seemed full as it could hold — 
There was place and to spare for the frank young 
smile 
And the red young mouth and the hair's young 
gold. 

99 



So^ hush, — I will give you this leaf to keep — 
See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand. 

There, that is our secret ! go to sleep ; 

You w4ll wake, and remember, and understand. 
Robert Browning. 

Love's Farewell ..i:^^ <:><:> <c> <:s> 

SINCE there's no help, come let us kiss and 
part, — 
Nay I have done, you get no more of me ; 
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart. 
That thus so cleanly I myself can free ; 

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, 
And when we meet at any time again. 
Be it not seen in either of our brows 
That w^e one j ot of former love retain. 

Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath. 
When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies. 
When faith is kneeling by his bed of death. 
And innocence is closing up his eyes, 

— Now if thou would' st, when all have given him 

over, 
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover ! 

Drayton. 

lOO 



True Love e:^ <:><::>,£>,£> .i:> 

LET me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments. Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds 

Or bends with the remover to remove :— 

no ! It is an ever-fixed mark 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; 
It is the star to every wandering bark^ 

Whose worth's unknown^ although his height 
be taken. 
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and 
cheeks 

Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 

But bears it out ev'n to the edge of doom : — 
If this be error, and upon me proved, 

1 never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

Shakespeare. 



)ong 



LOVE that hath us in the net, 
-/ Can he pass, and we forget ? 
Many suns arise and set. 

lOI 



Many a chance the years beget. 
Love the gift is Love the debt. 
Even so. 

Love is hurt with jar and fret. 
Love is made a vague regret. 
Eyes with idle tears are wet. 
Idle habit links us yet. 
What is love ? for we forget : 
Ah^ no ! no ! 

Tennyson. 



The Bargain .c?^ -.^ ^o>^ ^o>^ ^z> 

MY true love hath my heart, and I have his, 
By just exchange one for another given : 
1 hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss, 

There never was a better bargain driven : 
My true love hath my heart, and I have his. 

His heart in me keeps him and me in one. 

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides : 

He loves my heart, for once it was his own, 
I cherish his because in me it bides : 

My true love hath my heart, and I have his. 

Sir Philip Sidney. 

I02 



The Wife to the Husband ««i> ^o>^ <^ <?^ 

I. 

I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sun- 
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for 
years. 
Who each one in a gracious hand appears 
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young : 
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, 
I saw in gradual vision through my tears. 
The sweet sad years, the melancholy years, . . . 
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung 
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware 
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move 
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair ; 
And a voice said in mastery while I strove, . . . 
"Guess now who holds thee?" — "Death!" I 

said. But there, 
The silver answer rang, ..." Not Death, but 

Love." 

n. 

I never gave a lock of hair away 
To a man. Dearest, except this to thee. 
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully 
I ring out to the full brown length, and say, 
" Take it." My day of youth went yesterday ; 
103 



My hair no longer bounds to ni}^ foot's glee, 
Nor plant 1 it from rose or myrtle-tree, 
As girls do, any more. It only may 
Now shade on two pale cheeks, the mark of tears, 
Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside 
Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral- 
shears 
Would take this first ; but Love is justified : 
Take it thou, . . . finding pure, from all those 

years. 
The kiss my mother left here when she died. 

III. 

When our two souls stand up erect and strong. 
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher. 
Until the lengthening wings break into fire 
At either curved point, — what bitter wrong 
Can the earth do us, that we should not long- 
Be here contented ? Think. In mounting higher, 
The angels would press on us, and aspire 
To drop some golden orb of perfect song 
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay 
Rather on earth. Beloved, — where the unfit 
Contrarious moods of men recoil away 
And isolate pure spirits, and permit 
A place to stand and love in for a day. 
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it. 
104 



My letters! all dead paper, . . . mute and 

white ! — 
And yet they seem alive and quivering 
Against my tremulous hands, which loose the 

string 
And let them drop down on my knee to night. 
This said, ... he wished to have me in his sight 
Once, as a friend : this fixed a day in spring 
To come and touch my hand ... a simple thing, 
Yet 1 wept for it !— this, . . . the paper's light . . . 
Said, Bear, I love thee : and I sank and quailed 
As if God's future thundered on my past : 
This said, / am thine— and so its ink has paled 
With lying at my heart that beat too fast : 
And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed, 
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last ! 



v. 

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange 
And be all to me ? Shall I never miss 
Home talk and blessing, and the common kiss 
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange 
When I look up to drop on a new range 
Of walls and floors . . . another home than this ? 
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is 
105 



Filled by dead eyes^ too tender to know change ? 
That's hardest ! If to conquer love, has tried. 
To conquer grief tries more ... as all things 

prove : 
For grief indeed is love, and grief beside. 
Alas ! I have grieved so I am hard to love — 
Yet love me — wilt thou ? Open thine heart wide, 
And fold within the wet Mings of thy dove. 



First time he kissed me, he but only kissed 
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write. 
And ever since it grew more clean and white, . . . 
Slow to world-greetings . . . quick with its '' Oh, 

list ! " 
When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst 
I could not wear here plainer to my sight. 
Than that first kiss. The second passed in height 
The first, and sought the forehead, and half 

missed. 
Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed ! 
That was the chrism of love, which love's own 

crown, 
\^'ith sanctifying sweetness, did precede. 
The third, upon my lips, was folded down 
In perfect, purple state ! since when, indeed, 
I have been proud, and said, '^ My Love, my own." 
io6 



How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways. 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 

For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. 

I love thee to the level of every day's 

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right ; 

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise ; 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith ; 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints,— I love thee with the breath. 

Smiles, tears, of all my life !— and, if God choose 

I shall but love thee better after death. 

E. B. Browning. 



One Word More ^^ ^^ -^ 
To E. B. B. 



THERE they are, my fifty men and women 
Naming me the fifty poems finished ! 
Take them, Love, the book and me together. 
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also. 

107 



Rafael made a century of sonnets, 

Made and wrote them in a certain volume 

Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil 

Else he only used to draw Madonnas : 

These, the world might view — but one, the 

volume. 
Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs 

you. 
Did she live and love it all her lifetime ? 
Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets, 
Die, and let it drop beside her pillow 
Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, 
Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving — 
Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, 
Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's } 



You and I would rather read that volume, 
(Taken to his beating bosom by it) 
Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 
W^ould we not ? than wonder at Madonnas- 
Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, 
Her, that visits Florence in a vision. 
Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre — 
Seen by us and all the world in circle. 
io8 



IV. 

You and 1 will never read that volume. 

Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple 

Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it. 

Guido Reni dying, all Bologna 

Cried, and the world with it, ^^ Ours — the 

treasure ! " 
Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished. 



v. 

Dante once prepared to paint an angel : 
Whom to please ? You whisper '' Beatrice." 
While he mused and traced it and retraced it, 
(Peradventure with a pen corroded 
Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for, 
When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked. 
Back he held the brow and pricked its stigma. 
Bit into the live man's flesh for parchment. 
Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle. 
Let the wTetch go festering thro' Florence) — 
Dante, who loved well because he hated. 
Hated wickedness that hinders loving, 
Dante standing, studying his angel, — 
In there broke the folk of his Inferno. 
Says he — ^^ Certain people of importance " 
(Such he gave his daily, dreadful line to) 
109 



Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet. 
Says the poet — "Then I stopped my pamtmg." 

VI. 

You and I would rather see that angel, 
Painted by the tenderness of Dante, 
Would we not ? — than read a fresh Inferno. 

VII. 

You and I will never see that picture. 
While he mused on love and Beatrice, 
While he softened o'er his outlined angel. 
In they broke, those " people of importance " : 
We and Bice bear the loss for ever. 

VIII. 

What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture } 



This : no artist lives and loves that longs not 
Once, and only once, and for one only, 
(Ah, the prize !) to find his love a language 
Fit and fair and simple and sufficient — 
Using nature that's an art to others. 
Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature. 
Ay, of all the artists living, loving, 
None but would forego his proper dowry,— 
no 



Does he paint ? he fain would write a poem, — 
Does he write ? he fain would paint a picture, 
Put to proof art alien to the artist's, 
Once, and only once, and for one only. 
So to be the man and leave the artist, 
Save the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow. 



X. 

Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abate- 
ment ! 

He who smites the rock and spreads the water. 

Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him. 

Even he, the minute makes immortal. 

Proves, perchance, his mortal in the minute. 

Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing. 

While he smites, how can he but remember. 

So he smote before, in such a peril. 

When they stood and mocked — "Shall smiting 
help us?" 

When they drank and sneered — "A stroke is 
easy ! " 

When they wiped their mouths and went their 
journey. 

Throwing him for thanks — "But drought was 
pleasant." 

Thus old memories mar the actual triumph ; 
III 



Thus the doing savours of disrelish ; 

Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat ; 

O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate. 

Carelessness or consciousness, the gesture. 

For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 

Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces, 

Hears, yet one time more, the 'custome.l 

prelude— 
" How should'st thou, of all men, smite, and save 

us?" 
Guesses what is like to prove the sequel — 
" Egypt's flesh - pots — nay, the drought was 

better." 

XI. 

Oh, the crowd must have emphatic warrant ! 
Theirs, the Sinai-forehead's cloven brilliance, 
Right-arm's rod-sweep, tongue's imperial fiat. 
Never dares the man put off the prophet. 



Did he love one face from out the thousands, 
(Were she Jethro's daughter, white and wifely. 
Were she but the J^thiopian bondslave,) 
He would envy yon dumb patient camel. 
Keeping a reserve of scanty water 
Meant to save his own life in the desert ; 

112 



Ready in the desert to deliver 

(Kneeling down to let his breast be opened) 

Hoard and life together for his mistress. 

XIII. 

I shall never, in the years remaining. 
Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues. 
Make you music that should all-express me ; 
So it seems : I stand on my attainment. 
This of verse alone, one life allows me ; 
Verse and nothing else have I to give you. 
Other heights in other lives, God willing — 
All the gifts from all the heights, your own. 
Love ! 

XIV. 

Yet a semblance of resource avails us — • 

Shade so finely touched, love's sense must seize 

it. 
Take these lines, look lovingly and nearly. 
Lines I write the first time and the last time. 
He who works in fresco, steals a hair-brush, 
Curbs the liberal hand, subservient proudly. 
Cramps his spirit, crowds its all in little. 
Makes a strange art of an art familiar. 
Fills his lady's missal-marge with flowerets. 
He who blows thro' bronze, may breathe thro' 

silver, 

H 113 



Fitly serenade a slumbrous princess, 

He who writes, may write for once, as I do. 

XV. 

Love, you saw me gather men and women, 
Live or dead or fashioned by my fancy. 
Enter each and all, and use their service, 
Speak from every mouth, — the speech, a poem. 
Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, 
Hopes and fears, belief and disbelieving : 
1 am mine and yours — the rest be all men's, 
Karshook, Cleon, Norbert and the fifty. 
Let me speak this once in my true person. 
Not as Lippo, Roland or Andrea, 
Though the fruit of speech be just this sentence- 
Pray you, look on these my men and women. 
Take and keep my fifty poems finished ; 
Where my heart lies, let my brain lie also ! 
Poor the speech ; be how I speak, for all things. 

XVI. 

Not but that you know me ! Lo, the moon' 

self! 
Here in London, yonder late in Florence, 
Still we find her face, the thrice-transfigured. 
Curving on a sky imbrued with colour. 
Drifted over Fiesole by twilight, 
114 



Came she, our new crescent of a hair's-breadth. 
Full she flared it, lamping Samminiato, 
Rounder 'twixt the cypresses and rounder, 
Perfect till the nightingales applauded. 
Now, a piece of her old self, impoverished. 
Hard to greet, she traverses the house-roofs. 
Hurries with unhandsome thrift of silver. 
Goes dispiritedly, — glad to finish. 

XVII. 

What, there's nothing in the moon note-worthy ? 
Nay — for if that moon could love a mortal. 
Use, to charm him (so to fit a fancy) 
All her magic ('tis the old sweet mythos) 
She would turn a new side to her mortal. 
Side unseen of herdsman, huntsman, steersman — 
Blank to Zoroaster on his terrace. 
Blind to Galileo on his turret. 
Dumb to Homer, dumb to Keats — him, even ! 
Think, the wonder of the moonstruck mortal — 
When she turns round, comes again in heaven. 
Opens out anew for worse or better? 
Proves she like some portent of an ice-berg 
Swimming full upon the ship it founders, 
Hungry with huge teeth of splintered crystals ? 
Proves she as the paved- work of a sapphire 
Seen by Moses when he climbed the mountain ? 
115 



MoseSj Aaron, Nadab and Abihu 

Climbed and saw the very God, the Highest, 

Stand upon the paved-work of a sapphire. 

Like the bodied heaven in his clearness 

Shone the stone, the sapphire of that paved-work. 

When they ate and drank and saw God also ! 

XVIII. 

What were seen ? None knows, none ever shall 

know. 
Only this is sure — the sight were other, 
Not the moon's same side, born late in Florence, 
Dying now impoverished here in London. 
God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures 
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, 
One to show a woman when he loves her. 

XIX. 

This I say of me, but think of you. Love ! 
This to you — yourself my moon of poets ! 
Ah, but that's the world's side — there's the 

wonder — 
Thus they see you, praise you, think they know 

you. 
There, in turn I stand with them and praise you. 
Out of my own self, I dare to phrase it. 
But the best is when I glide from out them, 
ii6 



Cross a step or two of dubious twilight. 
Come out on the other side, the novel 
Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of, 
Where I hush and bless myself with silence. 



Oh, their Rafael of the dear Madonnas, 
Oh, their Dante of the dread Inferno, 
Wrote one song — and in my brain I sing it. 
Drew one angel — borne, see, on my bosom ! 
Robert Browning. 

A Wedding ^o ^a^ ^o ^c?^ ^C!>^ ^c?^ 

OTRUE and tried, so well and long. 
Demand not thou a marriage lay ; 
In that it is thy marriage day 
Is music more than any song. 

Nor have I felt so much of bliss 

Since first he told me that he loved 
A daughter of our house ; nor proved 

Since that dark day a day like this ; 

Tho' I since then have number'd o'er 

Some thrice three years : they went and came. 
Remade the blood and changed the frame. 

And yet is love not less, but more ; 
117 



No longer caring to embalm 

In dying songs a dead regret. 
But like a statue solid-set, 

And moulded in colossal calm. 

Regret is dead, but love is more 

Than in the summers that are flown. 
For I myself with these have grown 

To something greater than before ; 

Which makes appear the songs I made 
As echoes out of weaker times. 
As half but idle brawling rhymes. 

The sport of random sun and shade. 

But where is she, the bridal flower. 

That must be made a wife ere noon ? 
She enters, glowing like the moon 

Of Eden on its bridal bower : 

On me she bends her blissful eyes 

And then on thee ; they meet thy look 
And brighten like the star that shook 

Betwixt the palms of paradise. 

O when her life was yet in bud. 

He too foretold the perfect rose. 

For thee she grew, for thee she grows 

For ever, and as fair as good. 
ii8 



And thou art worthy ; full of power ; 
As gentle ; liberal-minded, great, 
Consistent ; wearing all that weight 

Of learning lightly like a flower. 

But now set out : the noon is near, 
And I must give away the bride ; 
She fears not, or with thee beside 

And me behind her, will not fear. 

For I that danced her on my knee. 

That watch'd her on her nurse's arm. 
That shielded all her life from harm 

At last must part with her to thee ; 

Now waiting to be made a wife. 

Her feet, my darling, on the dead ; 
Their pensive tablets round her head, 

And the most living words of life 

Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, 

The ^^wilt thou" answer'd, and again 
The ^^ wilt thou " ask'd, till out of twain 

Her sweet " I will" has made you one. 

Now sign your names, which shall be read. 
Mute symbols of a joyful morn. 
By village eyes as yet unborn ; 

The names are sign'd, and overhead 
119 



Begins the clash and clang that tells 

The joy to every wandering breeze ; 
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees 

The dead leaf trembles to the bells. 

O happy hour, and happier hours 

Await them. Many a merry face 
Salutes them — maidens of the place, 

That pelt us in the porch with flowers. 

O happy hour, behold the bride 

With him to whom her hand I gave. 
They leave the porch, they pass the grave 

That has to-day its sunny side. 

To-day the grave is bright for me. 

For them the light of life increased, 
Who stay to share the morning feast, 

W^ho rest to-night beside the sea. 

Let all my genial spirits advance 

To meet and greet a whiter sun ; 
My drooping memory will not shun 

The foaming grape of eastern France. 

It circles round, and fancy plays, 

And hearts are warm'd and faces bloom. 
As drinking health to bride and groom 

We wish them store of happy days. 

I20 



Nor count me all to blame if 1 
Conjecture of a stiller guest, 
Perchance, perchance, among the rest, 

And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. 

But they must go, the time draws on. 

And those white-favour' d horses wait ; 
They rise, but linger ; it is late ; 

Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. 

A shade falls on us like the dark 

From little cloudlets on the grass. 
But sweeps away as out we pass 

To range the woods, to roam the park, 

Discussing how their courtship grew, 
And talk of others that are wed. 
And how she look'd, and what he said. 

And back we come at fall of dew. 

Again the feast, the speech, the glee. 

The shade of passing thought, the wealth 
Of words and wit, the double health. 

The crowning cup, the three-times-three, 

And last the dance ; — till I retire : 

Dumb is that tower which spake so loud. 
And high in heaven the streaming cloud. 

And on the downs a rising fire : 

121 



And rise, O moon, from yonder down^ 
Till over down and over dale 
All night the shining vapour sail 

And pass the silent-lighted town. 

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills. 
And catch at every mountain head. 
And o'er the friths that branch and spread 

Their sleeping silver thro' the hills ; 

And touch with shade the bridal doors. 

With tender gloom the roof, the wall ; 
And breaking let the splendour fall 

To spangle all the happy shores 

By which they rest, and ocean sounds. 
And, star and system rolling past, 
A soul shall draw from out the vast 

And strike his being into bounds. 

And, moved thro' life of lower phase. 
Result in man, be born and think. 
And act and love, a closer link 

Betwixt us and the crow^ning race 

Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 

On knowledge ; under whose command 
Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand 

Is Nature like an open book ; 

122 



No longer half-akin to brute^ 

For all we thought and loved and did^ 
And hoped^ and sufFer'd, is but seed 

Of what in them is flower and fruit ; 

Whereof the man^ that with me trod 
This planet, was a noble type 
Appearing ere the times were ripe. 

That friend of mine who lives in God, 

That God, which ever lives and loves, 
One God, one law, one element, 
And one far-off divine event. 

To which the whole creation moves. 

Tennyson. 



123 



BOOK IV 
A LITTLE PHILOSOPHY 



125 



Truth 



BALADE DE BON CONSEYL. 



F^LEE fro the prees, and dwelle with sotli- 
fastnesse 
Suffice unto thy thyng though hit be small ; 
For hord hath hate and clymbyng tikelnesse. 

Frees hath envye^ and wele blent overal ; 
Savour no more than thee behove shall 

Werk well thyself^ that other folk canst rede. 
And trouthe shal delivere, it is no drede. 

Tempest thee noght al croked to redresse 
In trust of hir that turneth as a bal : 

Greet reste stant in litel besynesse ; 
An eek be war to sporne ageyn an al ; 

Stryve noght, as doth the crokke with the wal. 
Daunte thyself, that dauntest otheres dede 
And trouthe shall delivere, it is no drede. 
1 27 



That thee is sent, receyve in buxumnesse, 
The wrastling for this worlde axeth a fall. 

Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse. 

Forth, pilgrim, forth ! Forth, beste, out of thy 
stall, 

Know thy con tree, look up, thank God of al ; 
Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede. 
And trouth shall delivere, it is no drede. 



Therfore, thou vache, leve thyn old wrecehednesse 

Unto the world ; leve now to be thral ; 
Crye him mercy, that of his hy goodnesse 

Made thee of noght, and in especial 
Draw unto him, and pray in general 

For thee, and eek for other, hevenlich mede ; 

And trouthe shall delivere, it is no drede. 

(^Explicit le boil conseil de G. Chaucer.) 

Chaucer. 



Character of a Happy Life e> <:> 

HOW happy is he born and taught 
That serveth not another's will 
Whose armour is his honest thought 
And simple truth his utmost skill ! 
128 



Whose passions not his masters are^ 
Whose soul is still prepared for death, 

Untied unto the world by care 

Of public fame or private breath ; 

Who envies none that chance doth raise 
Nor vice ; who never understood 

How deepest wounds are given by praise ; 
Nor rules of state^, but rules of good : 

Who hath his life from rumours freed, 
Whose conscience is his strong retreat ; 

Whose state can neither flatterers feed, 
Nor ruin make oppressors great ; 

Who God doth late and early pray 
More of His grace than gifts to lend ; 

And entertains the harmless day 
With a religious book or friend ; 

This man is freed from servile bands 
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall ; 

Lord of himself, though not of lands ; 
And having nothing, yet hath all. 

Sir H. W^otton. 
I 129 



A Wish ,^ <:> ^p* <:> ^:> ^T' 

MINE be a cot beside the hill ; 
A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear ; 
A willowy brook, that turns a mill. 
With many a fall, shall linger near. 

The swallow oft, beneath my thatch. 
Shall twitter near her clay- built nest ; 

Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch. 
And share my meal, a welcome guest. 

Around my ivied porch shall spring 

Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew ; 

And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing. 
In russet gown and apron blue. 

The village church beneath the trees 

Where first our marriage vows were given, 

With merry peals shall swell the breeze 

And point with taper spire to heaven. 

Samuel Rogers. 

The World ^^ .^ ^o ^^ -^ >^ 

THE world is too much with us ; late and 
soon, 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers : 
Little we see in nature that is ours ; 
130 



We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon ! 
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon ; 
The winds that will be howling at all hours, 
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers ; 
For this, for everything, we are out of tune ; 
It moves us not. — Great God ! I'd rather be 
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea. 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 

Wordsworth. 



Ulysses ^p^ »,i> ^iip-- <:> e> ^t- 

IT little profits that an idle king, 
By this still hearth, among these barren 
crags. 
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole 
Unequal laws unto a savage race. 
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not 

me. 
I cannot rest from travel : I will drink 
Life to the lees : all times 1 have enjoy'd 
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those 
That loved me, and alone ; on shore, and when 



Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades 

Vext the dim sea : I am become a name ; 

For always roaming with a hungry heart 

Much have I seen and known ; cities of men, 

And manners, chmates, councils, governments. 

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all ; 

And drunk delight of battle with my peers. 

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 

I am a part of all that I have met ; 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 

Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin 

fades 
For ever and for ever when I move. 
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use ! 
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life 
Were all too little, and of one to me 
Little remains : but every hour is saved 
From that eternal silence, something more, 
A bringer of new things ; and vile it were 
For some three suns to store and hoard myself. 
And this gray spirit yearning in desire 
To follow knowledge like a sinking star. 
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle — 
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 
132 



This labour^ by slow prudence to make mild 
A rugged people^ and thro' soft degrees 
Subdue them to the useful and the good. 
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 
Of common duties, decent not to fail 
In offices of tenderness, and pay 
Meet adoration to my household gods. 
When I am gone. He works his work, 1 mine. 
There lies the port : the vessel puffs her sail : 
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners. 
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought 

with me — 
That ever with a frolic welcome took 
The ;thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old ; 
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil ; 
Death closes all : but something ere the end. 
Some work of noble note, may yet be done. 
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. 
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks : 
The long day wanes : the slow moon climbs : the 

deep 
Moans round with many voices. Come, my 

friends, 
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 
Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 
133 



To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
Of all the western stars, until I die. 
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : 
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 
Tho' much is taken, much abides ; and tho' 
We are not now that strength which in old days 
Moved earth and heaven ; that which we are, we 

are ; 
One equal temper of heroic hearts. 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 

Tennyson. 

French Revolution <:><:> <o ^^o <s>> 

As it appeared to enthusiasts at its commencement. 

OH ! pleasant exercise of hope and joy ! 
For mighty were the auxiliars which then 
stood 
Upon our side, we who were strong in love ! 
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. 
But to be young was very heaven ! — Oh ! times 
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways 
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once 
The attraction of a country in romance ! 
134 



When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights, 
When most intent on making of herself 
A prime enchantress — to assist the work 
Which then was going forward in her name ! 
Not favoured spots alone^ but the whole earth. 
The beauty wore of promise — that which sets 
(To take an image which was felt no doubt 
Among the bowers of paradise itself) 
The budding rose above the rose full blown. 
What temper at the prospect did not wake 
To happiness unthought of? The inert 
W>re roused, and lively natures rapt away ! 
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams, 
The playfellows of fancy, who had made 
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength 
Their ministers, — who in lordly wise had stirred 
Among the grandest objects of the sense. 
And dealt with whatsoever they found there 
As if they had within some lurking right 
To wield it ; — they, too, who of gentle mood 
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these 
Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more 

mild. 
And in the region of their peaceful selves ; — 
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty 
Did both find helpers to their heart's desire, 
And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish, — 

135 



Were called upon to exercise their skill, 
Not in Utopia, — subterraneous fields, — 
Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where ! 
But in the very world, which is the world 
Of all of us, — the place where in the end 
We find our happiness, or not at all ! 

Wordsworth. 



In Utrumque Paratus >i:> ^d^ ^o .o 

IF, in the silent mind of One all-pure 
At first imagined lay 
The sacred world ; and by procession sure 
From those still deeps, in form and colour drest, 
Seasons alternating, and night and day. 
The long-mused thought to north, south, east and 
west. 
Took then its all-seen way ; 

O waking on a world which thus-wise springs ! 

Whether it needs thee count 
Betwixt thy waking and the birth of things 
Ages or hours — O waking on life's stream ! 
B}^ lonely pureness to the all-pure fount 
(Only by this thou canst) the coloured dream 

Of life remount ! 

136 



Thin, thin the pleasant human noises grow, 

And foint the city gleams ; 
Rare the lone pastoral huts — marvel not thou ! 
The solemn peaks but to the stars are known, 
But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams ; 
Alone the sun arises, and alone 

Spring the great streams. 

Matthew Arnold. 



Fragment from " The Recluse " ^> <^ ^iS^ 

ON Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, 
Musing in solitude, I oft perceive 
Fair trains of imagery before me rise. 
Accompanied by feelings of delight 
Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed ; 
And I am conscious of affecting thoughts 
And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes 
Or elevates the Mind, intent to weigh 
The good and evil of our mortal state. 
— To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come. 
Whether from breath of outward circumstance. 
Or from the Soul — an impulse to herself, 
I would give utterance in numerous verse. 
Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope — 
And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith ; 
^37 



Of blessed consolations in distress ; 

Of moral strength_, and intellectual power ; 

Of joy in widest commonalty spread ; 

Of the individual mind that keeps her own 

Inviolate retirement, subject there 

To Conscience only, and the Law supreme 

Of that intelligence which governs all ; 

I sing: — "fit audience let me find, though few! " 

So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard, 
Holiest of men. — Urania, I shall need 
Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such 
Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven ! 
For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink 
Deep — and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds 
To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. 
All strength — all terror, single or in bands. 
That ever was pat forth in personal form ; 
Jehovah — with his thunder, and the choir 
Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones — 
I pass them unalarmed. Not Chaos, not 
The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, 
Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out 
By help of dreams, can breed such fear and awe 
As fall upon us often when we look 
Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man, 
My haunt, and the main region of my song. 

138 



— Beauty — a living Presence of the earth. 
Surpassing the most fair ideal Forms 
Which craft of delicate Spirits hath composed 
From earth's materials — waits upon my steps ; 
Pitches her tents before me as I move, 
An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves 
Elysian, Fortunate Fields — like those of old 
Sought in the Atlantic Main — why should they be 
A history only of departed things, 
Or a mere fiction of what never was ? 
For the discerning intellect of Man, 
When wedded to this goodly universe 
In love and holy passion, shall find these 
A simple produce of the common day. 
I, long before the blissful hour arrives. 
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse 
Of this great consummation : — and, by words 
Which speak of nothing more than what we are. 
Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep 
Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain 
To noble raptures ; while my voice proclaims 
How exquisitely the individual Mind 
(And the progressive powers perhaps no less 
Of the whole species) to the external World 
Is fitted : — and how exquisitely, too. 
Theme this but little heard of among Men, 
The external World is fitted to the Mind ; 
139 



And the creation (by no lower name 
Can it be called) which they with blended might 
Accomplish : — this is our high argument. 
— Such grateful haunts forgoing^ if I oft 
Must turn elsewhere — to travel near the tribes 
And fellowships of men, and see ill sights 
Of madding passions mutually inflamed ; 
Must hear Humanity in fields and groves 
Pipe solitary anguish ; or must hang 
Brooding above the fierce confederate storm 
Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore 
Within the walls of Cities ; may these sounds 
Have their authentic comment, — that even these 
Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn ! 
— Descend, prophetic Spirit ! that inspirest 
The human Soul of universal earth. 
Dreaming on things to come ; and dost possess 
A metropolitan Temple in the hearts 
Of mighty Poets ; upon me bestow 
A gift of genuine insight ; that my Song 
With star-like virtue in its place may shine. 
Shedding benignant influence, — and secure. 
Itself, from all malevolent effect 
Of those mutations that extend their sway 
Throughout the nether sphere ! — And if with this 
I mix more lowly matter ; with the thing 
Contemplated, describe the Mind and Man 
140 



Contemplating, and who, and what he was, 

The transitory Being that beheld 

This Vision, — when and where, and how he 

lived ; — 
Be not this labour useless. If such theme 
May sort with liighest objects, then, dread Power, 
Whose gracious favour is the primal source 
Of all illumination, may my Life 
Express the image of a better time. 
More wise desires, and simpler manners ; — nurse 
My Heart in genuine freedom : — all pure thoughts 
Be with me ; — so shall Thy unfailing love 
Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end I 

Wordsworth. 



The Struggle ^^> ^o- ^o^ ^o 

SAY not, the struggle nought availeth. 
The labour and the wounds are vain ; 
The enemy faints not nor faileth. 

And as things have been they remain. 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars ; 

It may be, in yon smoke concealed. 
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers. 

And, but for you, possess the field. 
141 



For while the tired waves vainly breaking 
Seem here no painful inch to gain. 

Far back, through creeks and inlets making, 
Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

And not by eastern windows only 

When daylight comes, comes in the light. 

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, 
But westward, look, the land is bright. 

A. H. Clough. 



Wages h:> ,£> <^ <s> ^:> e:> 

GLORY of warrior, glory of orator, glory of 
song. 
Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an 
endless sea — 
Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the 
wrong — 
Nay, but she aimed not at gloiy, no lover of 
glory she : 
Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. 

The wages of sin is death : if the wages of Virtue 
be dust. 
Would she have heart to endure for the life 
of the worm and the fly } 
142 



She desires no isles of the blest^ no quiet seats of 
the just^ 
To rest in a golden grove^ or to bask in a 
summer sky : 
Give her the wages of going on^ and not to die. 

Tennyson. 



I Am the Way 



'T^HOU art the Way. 



Hadst Thou been nothing but 
the goal, 
I cannot say 
If Thou hadst ever met my soul. 

I cannot see — 
I, child of process — if there lies 

An end for me. 
Full of repose, full of replies. 

I'll not reproach 
The way that goes, my feet that stir. 

Access, approach. 
Art Thou, time, way, and wayfarer. 

Alice Meynell. 
143 



Morality -c?^ ^o^ <r?^ o ^c^ <?- 

WE cannot kindle when we will 
The fire which in the heart resides ; 
The spirit bloweth and is still. 
In mystery our soul abides. 

But tasks in hours of insight willed 
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled. 

With aching hands and bleeding feet 
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone ; 
We bear the burden and the heat 
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done. 
Not till the hours of light return, 
All we have built do we discern. 

Then when the clouds are off the soul. 
When thou dost bask in Nature's eye. 
Ask, how she viewed thy self-control, 
Thy struggling, tasked morality — 

Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air. 
Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair. 

And she, whose censure thou dost dread, 

Whose eye thou wast afraid to seek. 

See, on her face a glow is spread, 

A strong emotion on her cheek ! 

" Ah, child ! " she cries, " that strife divine. 
Whence was it, for it is not mine ? 
144 



^' There is no eifort on my brow — 

1 do not strive, I do not weep ; 

I rush with the swift spheres and glow 

In joy, and when I will, I sleep. 

Yet that severe, that earnest air, 
1 saw, I felt it once — but where ? 

" I knew not yet the gauge of time. 

Nor wore the manacles of space ; 

1 felt it in some other clime, 

I saw it in some other place, 

'Twas when the heavenly house I trod, 
And lay upon the breast of God." 

Matthew Arnold. 



The Neophyte <:> ^^ <^ •^:> -^^ 

WHO knows what days I answer for to-day ? 
Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow 
This yet unfaded and a fading brow ; 
Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray. 

Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way. 
Give one repose to pain I know not now. 
One leaven to joy that comes, 1 guess not how. 

I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey. 
K 145 



Oh, rash ! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat. 

I fold to-day at altars far apart 
Hands trembling with what toils ? In their 
retreat 
I seal my love to-be. my folded art. 
I light the tapers at my head and feet, 
And lay the crucifix on this silent heart. 

Alice Meynell. 

Ode to Duty ^^ ^o^ o ^o ^o 

"Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non 
tantum recte facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non 

possim. " 

STERN Daughter of the Voice of God ! 
O Duty ! if that name thou love 
Who art a light to guide, a rod 
To check the erring, and reprove ; 
Thou, who art victory and law 
When empty terrors overawe ; 
From vain temptations dost set free ; 
And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity ! 

There are who ask not if thine eye 
Be on them ; who, in love and truth. 
Where no misgiving is, rely 
Upon the genial sense of youth : 
146 



Glad Hearts ! without reproach or blot ; 
Who do thy work^ and know it not : 
Long may the kindly impulse last ! 
But Thou^ if they should totter, teach them to 
stand fast ! 



Serene will be our days and bright. 
And happy will our nature be, 
When love is an unerring light, 
And joy its own security. 
And they a blissful course may hold 
Even now, who, not unwisely bold. 
Live in the spirit of this creed ; 
Yet seek thy firm support, according to their 
need. 



I, loving freedom, and untried. 
No sport of every random gust. 
Yet being to myself a guide. 
Too blindly have reposed my trust ; 
And oft, when in my heart was heard 
Thy timely mandate, I deferred 
The task, in smoother walks to stray ; 
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I 
may. 

147 



Through no disturbance of my soul, 

Or strong compunction in me wrought, 

I supplicate for thy control ; 

But in the quietness of thought : 

Me this unchartered freedom tires ; 

I feel the weight of chance desires : 

My hopes no more must change their name, 

I long for a repose that ever is the same. 

Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
The Godhead's most benignant grace ; 
Nor know we anything so fair 
As is the smile upon thy face : 
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, 
And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong ; 
And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, 
are fresh and strong. 

To humbler functions, awful Power ! 
I call thee : I myself commend 
Unto thy guidance from this hour ; 
Oh, let my weakness have an end ! 
Give unto me, made lowly wise. 
The spirit of self-sacrifice ; 
The confidence of reason give ; 
And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live ! 

Wordsworth. 
148 



BOOK V 
A JOY FOR EVER 



•49 



A Joy for Ever yi> «:> ,>^ «;:> <:> 

A THING of beauty is a joy for ever : 
Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet 

breathing. 
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing 
A flowery band to bind us to the earth. 
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways 
Made for our searching : yes, in spite of all. 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon. 
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon 
For simple sheep ; and such are daffodils 
With the green world they live in ; and clear rills 
That for themselves a cooling covert make 
'Gainst the hot season ; the mid forest brake, 
151 



Rich with a sprinkling of feir musk-rose blooms : 
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms 
We have imagined for the mighty dead ; 
All lovely tales that we have heard or read : 
An endless fountain of immortal drink^ 
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. 

Keats. 

Auffuries of Innocence ^i> <?^ ^c^ ^ 



TO see a world in a grain of sand^ 
A heaven in a Avild flower^ 
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand 
And eternity in an hour. 

Blake. 

The Daffodils <c> e> ^i:> ^i> ^o 

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills. 
When all at once 1 saw a crowd, 
A host of golden daffodils ; 
Beside the lake, beneath the trees. 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 

Continuous as the stars that shine 
And twinkle on the milky way, 
152 



They stretched in never-ending line 
Along the margin of a bay : 
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced, but they 

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee : — 

A poet could not but be gay 

In such a jocund company : 

I gazed — and gazed — but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought 

For oft w^hen on my couch I lie 

In vacant or in pensive mood, 

They flash upon that inward eye 

Which is the bliss of solitude, 

And then my heart with pleasure fills. 

And dances with the daffodils. 

Wordsworth. 

Ode on a Grecian Urn ^cy^ .c^ ^o 



THOU still unravished bride of quietness. 
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time. 
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme ; 

153 



What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 
Of deities or mortals, or of both, 

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady ? 
What men or gods are these ? What maidens 
loth? 
What mad pursuit ? What struggle to escape ? 
What pipes and timbrels ? What wild ecstasy ? 

II. 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 

Are sweeter ; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on ; 
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared. 

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone : 
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare ; 
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss. 
Though winning near the goal — yet, do not 
grieve ; 
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss. 
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair ! 

III. 

Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed 
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu ; 

And, happy melodist, unwearied. 
For ever piping songs for ever new ; 
154 



More happy love ! more happy, happy love ! 
For ever warm and still to be enjoyed, 
For ever panting, and for ever young ; 
All breathing human passion far above, 

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, 
A burning forehead and a parching tongue. 



IV. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice ? 

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest ? 
What little town by river or sea-shore. 

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel. 
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? 
And, little town, thy streets for evermore 

Will silent be ; and not a soul to tell 
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 



V. 

O Attic shape ! Fair attitude ! with brede 

Of marble men and maidens over- wrought. 
With forest branches and the trodden weed ; 
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of 
thought 

155 



As doth eternity : Cold pastoral ! 

When old age shall this generation waste, 
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know 

Keats. 

The Guardian-Angel -c^ ^o^ ^::> ^c> 

A PICTURE AT FANG. 



DEAR and great Angel, wouldst thou only 
leave 
That child, when thou hast done with him, for 
me ! 
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve 
Shall find performed thy special ministry 
And time come for departure, thou, suspending 
Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending. 
Another still to quiet and retrieve. 



Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more. 
From where thou standest now, to where I 
gaze, 

156 



And suddenly my head be covered o'er 

With those wings, white above the child who 
prays 
Now on that tomb — and I shall feel thee guarding 
Me, out of all the world ; for me, discarding 
Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes 
its door ! 

HI. 

I would not look up thither past thy head 

Because the door opes, like that child, I know. 

For I should have thy gracious face instead. 

Thou bird of God ! And wilt thou bend me low 

Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together. 

And lift them up to pray, and gently tether 

Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garments 
spread ? 

IV. 

If this was ever granted, I would rest 

My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands 
Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast. 
Pressing the brain, which too much thought 
expands. 
Back to its proper size again, and smoothing 
Distortion down till every nerve had soothing. 
And all lay quiet, happy and supprest. 
157 



V. 

How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired ! 

I think how I should view the earth and skies 
And sea, when once again my brow was bared 

After thy healing, with such different eyes. 
O w^orld, as God has made it ! all is beauty : 
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty, 

What further may be sought for or declared ? 
Robert Browning. 



THE MIGHTY DEAD. 

I. 
To Toussaint L'Ouverture '<:> o o 

TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy man of men ! 
Whether the whistling rustic tend his 
plough 
Within thy hearing, or thy head be now 
Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den ; 
O miserable chieftain ! where and when 
Wilt thou find patience .^ Yet die not ! do thou 
Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow : 
Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, 
Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind 
Powers that will work for thee : air, earth, and 
skies : 

158 



There's not a breathing of the common wind 
That will forget thee ; thou hast great allies ; 
Thy friends are exultations, agonies, 
And love, and man's unconquerable mind. 

Wordsworth. 

II. 

ADONAIS. 

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS, AUTHOR 
OF " ENDYMION," "HYPERION," ETC. 

PREFACE. 

^apixaKou ifKde, Wlwv, ttotl abv arofia, (papjuLaKov eldes. 
TTcDs T€v To2s xetXecrcrt iroTedpafj^e, kovk eyXvKdvdr/ ; 
Ti'j 8e ppoTos ToaaovTOv avdfxepos, rj Kepdaai rot, 
7] Sovvai \a\eovTL to (pdp/xaKOv ; eKcpvyev uddv. 

— MOSCHUS, Epitaph. Bion. 

It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this 
poem a criticism upon the claims of its lamented object to 
be classed among the writers of the highest genius who have 
adorned our age. My known repugnance to the narrow 
principles of taste on which several of his earlier composi- 
tions were modelled prove at least that I am an impartial 
judge. I consider the fragment of Hyperion as second to 
nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same 
years. 

John Keats died at Rome of a consumption, in his twenty- 
fourth year, on the of 1821 ; and was buried in 

the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that 
city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and 



the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, 
which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery 
is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with 
violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, . 
to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place. 

The genius of the lamented person to whose memory I 
have dedicated these unworthy verses was not less delicate 
and fragile than it was beautiful ; and where cankerworms 
abound, what wonder if its young flower was blighted in 
the bud? The savage criticism on his Endyviion, which 
appeared in the Quarterly Review^ produced the most 
violent effect on his susceptible mind ; the agitation thus 
originated ended in the rupture of a blood-vessel in the 
lungs ; a rapid consumption ensued, and the succeeding 
acknowledgments from more candid critics of the true 
greatness of his powers were ineffectual to heal the wound 
thus wantonly inflicted. 

It may be well said that these wretched men know not 
what they do. They scatter their insults and their slanders 
without heed as to whether the poisoned shaft lights on a 
heart made callous by many blows or one like Keats's com- 
posed of more penetrable stuff. One of their associates is, 
to my knowledge, a most base and unprincipled calumniator. 
As to Endyinion, was it a poem, whatever might be its 
defects, to be treated contemptuously by those who had 
celebrated, with various degrees of complacency and pane- 
gyric, Paris, and Woman, and a Syrian Tale, and Mrs. 
Lefanu, and Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Howard Payne, and a 
long list of the illustrious obscure ? Are these the men who 
in their venal good nature presumed to draw a parallel 
between the Rev. Mr. Milman and Lord Byron? What 
gnat did they strain at here, after having swallowed all those 
camels ? Against what woman taken in adultery dares tne 
foremost of these literary prostitutes to cast his opprobrious 
stone ? Miserable man ! you, one of the meanest, have 
1 60 



wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of the work- 
manship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse, that, murderer 
as you are, you have spoken daggers, but used none. 

The circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats's 
life were not made known to me until the Elegy was ready 
for the press. I am given to understand that the wound 
which his sensitive spirit had received from the criticism of 
Etidymion was exasperated by the bitter sense of unrequited 
benefits ; the poor fellow seems to have been hooted from 
the stage of life, no less by those on whom he had wasted 
the promise of his genius, than those on whom he had 
lavished his fortune and his care. He was accompanied to 
Rome, and attended in his last illness by Mr. Severn, a 
young artist of the highest promise, who, I have been 
informed, "almost risked his own life, and sacrificed every 
prospect to unwearied attendance upon his dying friend." 
Had I known these circumstances before the completion 
of my poem, I should have been tempted to add my feeble 
tribute of applause to the more solid recompense which the 
virtuous man finds in the recollection of his own motives. 
Mr. Severn can dispense with a reward from "such stuff as 
dreams are made of." His conduct is a golden augury of 
the success of his future career — may the unextinguished 
Spirit of his illustrious friend animate the creations of his 
pencil, and plead against Oblivion for his name ! 

ADONAIS. 

I. 

I WEEP for Adonais— he is dead ! 
Oh;, weep for Adonais ! though our tears 
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! 
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years 
L i6i 



To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers. 
And teach them thine own sorrow, say : " With 

me 
Died Adonais ; till the Future dares 
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 
An echo and a light unto eternity! " 



Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay. 
When thy Son lay, pieiced by the shaft which 

flies 
In darkness ? where was lorn Urania 
When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes, 
'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise 
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath. 
Rekindled all the fading melodies, 
W^ith which, like flowers that mock the corse 

beneath. 
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of 

Death. 

III. 
Oh, weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep ! 
Yet wherefore ? Quench within their burning 

bed 
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep, 
162 



Like his^ a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; 
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair 
Descend ; — oh, dream not that the amorous 

Deep 
Will yet restore him to the vital air ; 
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our 
despair. 

IV. 

Most musical of mourners, weep again ! 
Lament anew, Urania ! — he died. 
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain. 
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's 

pride. 
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide. 
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 
Of lust and blood ; he went, unterrified. 
Into the gulf of death ; but his clear Sprite 
Yet reigns o'er earth ; the third among the sons 

of light. 



Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 
Not all to that bright station dared to climb ; 
And happier they their happiness who knew. 
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of 
time 

163 



In which suns perished ; others more subUme, 
Struck by the envious wrath of man or god. 
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime ; 
And some yet Uve, treading the thorny road, 
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's 
serene abode. 

VI. 

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has 

perished — 
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew. 
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished. 
And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew ; 
Most musical of mourners, w^eep anew ! 
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last, 
The bloom, whose petals nipped before they 

blew 
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste ; 
The broken lily lies — the storm is overpast. 



To that high Capital, where kingly death 
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay. 
He came ; and bought, with price of purest 

breath, 
A grave among the eternal. — Come away ! 
164 



Haste^ while the vault of blue Italian day 
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof I while still 
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay ; 
Awake him not ! surely he takes his fill 
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 



He will awake no more, oh, never more ! — 
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace 
The shadow of white Death, and at the door 
Invisible Corruption waits to trace 
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place ; 
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 
So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law 
Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain 
draw. 

IX. 

Oh, weep for Adonais ! — The quick Dreams, 
The passion-winged Ministers of thought, 
Who were his flocks, whom near the living 

streams 
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught 
The love which was its music, wander not, — 
Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain, 

'65 



But droop there, whence they sprung ; and 

mourn their lot 
Round the cold heart, where, after then* sweet 
pain, 
They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home 
again. 



And one with trembling hands clasps his cold 

head. 
And fans him with her moonlight wings, and 

cries ; 
'' Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ; 
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes. 
Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 
A tear some Dream has loosened from his 

brain." 
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise ! 
She knew not 'twas her own ; as with no stain 
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its 

rain. 



One from a lucid urn of starry dew 
Washed his light limbs as if embalming them 
Another clipped her profuse locks, and threw 
The wreath upon him, like an anadem, 
i66 



Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; 
Another in her wilful grief would break 
Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 
A greater loss with one w^hich was more weak ; 
And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. 



XII. 

Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 

That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the 

breath 
Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded 

wit, 
And pass into the panting heart beneath 
With lightning and with music : the damp death 
Quenched its caress upon his icy lips ; 
And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath 
Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night 

clips. 
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to 

its eclipse. 

XIII. 

And others came . . . Desires and Adorations, 
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies, 
Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering 

Incarnations 
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies ; 
167 



And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, 
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam 
Of her own dying smile instead of eyes. 
Came in slow pomp ; — the moving pomp might 
seem 
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. 



All he had loved, and moulded into thought, 
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet 

sound. 
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 
Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound. 
Wet with the tears which should adorn the 

ground. 
Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day ; 
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned. 
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay. 
And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their 

dismay. 

XV. 

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains. 
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay. 
And will no more reply to winds or fountains. 
Or amorous birds perched on the young green 
spray, 

i68 



Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day ; 
Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear 
Than those for whose disdain she pined away 
Into a shadow of all sounds : — a drear 
Murmm*, between their songs, is all the woodmen 
hear. 

XVI. 

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she 

threw down 
Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were. 
Or they dead leaves ; since her delight is 

flown, 
For whom should she have waked the sullen 

year ? 
To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear 
Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both 
Thou, Adonais : wan they stand and sere 
Amid the faint companions of their youth. 
With dew all turned to tears ; odour, to sighing 

ruth. 



Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale 
Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain ; 
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale 
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain 
169 



Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, 
Soaring and screaming romid her empty nest, 
As Albion wails for thee : the curse of Cain 
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent 

breast, 
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly 

guest ! 

XVIII. 

Ah, woe is me I Winter is come and gone. 
But grief returns with the revolving year ; 
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone ; 
The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear ; 
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Season's 

bier ; 
The amorous birds now pair in eveiy brake. 
And build their mossy homes in field and brere ; 
And the green lizard, and the golden snake, 
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance 

awake. 



Through wood and stream and field and hill 

and Ocean 
A quickening life from the Earth's heart has 

burst 
As it has ever done, with change and motion, 
From the great morning of the world when first 
170 



God dawned on Chaos ; in its stream immersed, 
The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer Hght ; 
All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst ; 
Diifuse themselves ; and spend in love's delight, 
The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. 

XX. 

The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit 

tender. 
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath ; 
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour 
Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death 
And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath ; 
Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which 

knows 
Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
By sightless lightning ? — the intense atom 

glows 
A moment, then is quenched in a most cold 

repose. 

XXI. 

Alas ! that all we loved of him should be. 
But for our grief, as if it had not been, 
And grief itself be mortal ! Woe is me ! 
Whence are we, and why are we ? of what 
scene 

J 71 



The actors or spectators ? Great and mean 
Meet massed in death, who lends what life 

must borrow. 
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, 
Evening must usher night, night urge the 

morrow. 
Month follow month with woe, and year wake 

year to sorrow. 

XXII. 

He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 

" Wake thou," cried Misery, " childless Mother, 

rise 
Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core, 
A wound more fierce than his, with tears and 

sighs." 
And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes. 
And all the Echoes whom their sister's song 
Had held in holy silence, cried : " Arise ! " 
Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung. 
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour 

sprung. 

XXIII. 

She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs 
Out of the East, and follows wild and drear 
The golden Day, which, on eternal wings. 
Even as a ghost abandoning a bier, 
172 



Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear 
So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania ; 
So saddened round her like an atmosphere 
Of stormy mist ; so swept her on her way 
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. 



XXIV. 

Out of her secret Paradise she sped, 

Through camps and cities rough with stone, 

and steel. 
And human hearts, which to her aery tread 
Yielding not, wounded the invisible 
Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell : 
And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp 

than they. 
Rent the soft Form they never could repel. 
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of 

May, 
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. 



XXV. 

In the death-chamber for a moment Death, 
Shamed by the presence of that living Might 
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath 
Revisited those lips, and Life's pale light 
173 



Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear 

delight. 
" Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless. 
As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! 
Leave me not ! " cried Urania : her distress 
Roused Death : Death rose and smiled, and met 
her vain caress. 



'^ Stay yet awhile ! speak to me once again ; 
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live ; 
And in my heartless breast and burning brain 
That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else 

survive. 
With food of saddest memory kept alive. 
Now thou art dead, as if it were a part 
Of thee, my Adonais ! I would give 
All that I am to be as thou now art ! 
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence 

depart ! 

xxvir. 

" O gentle child, beautiful as thou w^ert, 

Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men 

Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty 

heart 
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den ? 
174 



Defenceless as thou wert, oh, where was then 
Wisdom the muTored shield, or scorn the spear ? 
Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when 
Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere. 
The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee 
like deer. 

XXVIII. 

" The herded wolves, bold only to pursue ; 
The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead ; 
The vultures to the conqueror's banner true 
Who feed where Desolation first has fed. 
And whose wings rain contagion; — how they 

fled. 
When, like Apollo, from his golden bow 
The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 
And smiled! — The spoilers tempt no second 

blow. 
They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them 

lying low. 

XXIX. 

"The sun comes forth, and many reptiles. 

spaw n ; 
He sets, and each ephemeral insect then 
Is gathered into death without a dawn. 
And the immortal stars awake again ; 
175 



So is it in the world of living men : 

A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight 

Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and 

when 
It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its 

light 
Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful 

night." 



Thus ceased she : and the mountain shepherds 

came, 
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent ; 
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 
Over his living head like Heaven is bent. 
An early but enduring monument. 
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
In sorrow ; from her wilds lerne sent 
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, 
And Love taught Grief to fall like music from his 
tongue. 

XXXI. 

Midst others of less note, came one frail Form, 
A phantom among men ; companionless 
As the last cloud of an expiring storm 
Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess, 
176 



Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness^ 
Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray 
With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, 
And his own thoughts, along that rugged 
way, 
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and 
their prey. 

XXXII. 

A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift — 

A Love in desolation masked ; — a Power 

Girt round with weakness ; — it can scarce 

uplift 
The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 
It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 
A breaking billow ; — even whilst we speak 
Is it not broken ? On the withering flower 
The killing sun smiles brightly : on a cheek 
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart 
may break. 

XXXIII. 

His head was bound with pansies overblown, 
And faded violets, white, and pied and blue ; 
And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, 
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew 

M 177 



Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew, 

Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart 

Shook the weak hand that grasped it ; of that 

crew 
He came the last, neglected and apart ; 
A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's 
dart. 

XXXIV. 

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan 
Smiled through their tears ; well knew that 

gentle band 
Who in another's fate now wept his own. 
As in the accents of an unknown land 
He sung new sorrow ; sad Urania scanned 
The Stranger's mien, and murmured : '^ Who 

art thou ? " 
He answered not, but with a sudden hand 
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow. 
Which was like Cain's or Christ's — oh ! that it 
should be so ! 

XXXV. 

What softer voice is hushed over the dead } 
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown ? 
What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, 
In mockery of monumental stone, 

178 



The heavy heart heaving without a moan ? 
If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise. 
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed 

one. 
Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs. 
The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. 



XXXVI. 

Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh ! 

What deaf and viperous murderer could 

crown 
Life's early cup with such a draught of woe ? 
The nameless worm would now itself disown : 
It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone 
Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong. 
But what was howling in one breast alone. 
Silent with expectation of the song. 
Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre 
unstruns". 



xxxvir. 

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 
Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me. 
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! 
But be thyself, and know thyself to be ! 
T79 



And ever at thy season be thou free 
To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow : 
Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee ; 
Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, 
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as 



XXXVIII. 

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 
Far from these carrion kites that scream below ; 
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. — 
Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall 

flow 
Back to the burning fountain whence it came. 
A portion of the Eternal^ which must glow 
Through time and change, unquenchably the 

same. 
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth 

of shame. 

XXXIX. 

Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not 

sleep — 
He hath awakened from the dream of life — 
'Tis we, w^ho lost in stormy visions, keep 
With phantoms an unprofitable strife, 
i8o 



And in mad trance, strike with our spirit' 

knife 
Invulnerable nothings.— ^Fe decay 
Like corpses in a charnel ; fear and grief 
Convulse us and consume us day by day, 
And cold hopes swarm like worms within oui 

living clay. 



XL. 



He has outsoared the shadow of our night ; 
Envy and calumny and hate and pain, 
And that unrest which men miscall delight, 
Caii touch him not and torture not again ; 
From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
He is secure, and now can never mourn 
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray 

vain ; 
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn. 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 



XLI. 

He lives, he wakes— 'tis Death is dead, 

he ; 
Mourn not for Adonais.— Thou young Dawn, 
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee 
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone ; 



Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan ! 
Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou 

Air, 
Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst 

thrown 
O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare 
Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair ! 

XLII. 

He is made one with Nature : there is heard 
His voice in all her music, from the moan 
Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird ; 
He is a presence to be felt and known 
In darkness and in light, from herb and stone. 
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 
Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 
Which wields the world with never-wearied 
love. 
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 



He is a portion of the loveliness 
Which once he made more lovely : he doth bear 
His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress 
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling 
there, 

182 



All new successions to the forms they wear ; 
Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its 



flight 
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; 
And bursting in its beauty and its might 
From trees and beasts and men into the Heavens' 
light. 

XLIV. 

The splendours of the firmament of time 
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ; 
Like stars to their appointed height they 

climb, 
And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 
Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair. 
And love and life contend in it, for what 
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there 
And move like winds of light on dark and 
stormy air. 

XLV. 

The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 

Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal 

thought. 
Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton 
Rose pale, — his solemn agony had not 

183 



Yet faded from him ; Sidney, as he fought 
And as he fell and as he lived and loved 
Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot, 
Arose ; and Lucan, by his death approved : 
Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. 



XLVI. 

And many more, whose names on Earth are 

dark. 
But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 
So long as fire outlives the parent spark, 
Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 
" Thou art become as one of us," they cry, 
" It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 
Swung blind in unascended majesty. 
Silent alone amid a Heaven of Song. 
Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our 
throng ! " 

XLVII. 

Who mourns for Adonais ? Oh, come forth. 
Fond wretch ! and know thyself and him aright. 
Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous 

Earth ; 
As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light 
184 



Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 
Satiate the void circumference : then shrink 
Even to a point within our day and night ; 
And keep thy heart light lest it make thee 

sink 
When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to 

the brink. 



Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, 

Oh, not of him, but of our joy : 'tis nought 

That ages, empires, and religions there 

Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought ; 

For such as he can lend, — they borrow not 

Glory from those who made the world their 

prey ; 
And he is gathered to the kings of thought 
Who waged contention with their time's decay. 
And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 



XLIX. 

Go thou to Rome, — at once the Paradise, 
The grave, the city, and the wilderness ; 
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains 

rise. 
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress 

'85 



The bones of Desolation's nakedness 
Pass^ till the spirit of the spot shall lead 
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access 
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead 
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is 
spread ; 



And gray walls moulder round, on which dull 

Time 
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; 
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 
This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath, 
A field is spread, on which a newer band 
Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of 

death. 
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished 

breath. 

LI. 

Here pause : these graves are all too young as 

yet 
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
Its charge to each ; and if the seal is set. 
Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind, 
i86 



Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find 
Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, 
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 
What Adonais is, why fear we to become ? 

LII. 

The One remains, the many change and pass ; 
Heaven's light forever shines. Earth's shadows 

fly; 

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass. 
Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 
Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, 
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost 

seek! 
Follow where all is fled! — Rome's azure sky. 
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak 
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 

LIII. 

Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my 

Heart ? 
Thy hopes are gone before : from all things 

here 
They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! 
A light is passed from the revolving year, 

187 



And man, and woman ; and what still is dear 
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
The soft sky smiles, — the low wind whispers 

near : 
'Tis Adonais calls ! oh, hasten thither, 
No more let Life divide what Death can join 
together. 

LIV. 

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, 
That Beauty in which all things work and 

move. 
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse 
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
Which through the web of being blindly wove 
By man and beast and earth and air and sea. 
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
The fire for which all thirst ; now beams on me. 
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 



The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven, 
Far from the shore, far from the trembling 

throng 
Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 
i88 



The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 

I am borne darkly^ fearfully, afar ; 

Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of 

Heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 

Shelley. 

III. 
Morte D' Arthur .c^^ ,0 ^o ^^> o 

SO all day long the noise of battle rolled 
Among the mountains by the winter sea ; 
Until King Arthur's table, man by man. 
Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord, 
King Arthur : then, because his wound was deep, 
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him. 
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, 
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
A broken chancel with a broken cross. 
That stood on a dark strait of barren land. 
On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
"The sequel of to-day unsolders all 
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
Whereof this world holds record, Such a sleep 



They sleep — the men 1 loved. I think that we 
Shall never more^ at any future thue^ 
Delight our souls with talk of knightly deecls^ 
Walking about the gardens and the halls 
Of Camel ot^ as in the days that were. 
I perish by this people which I made, — 
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again 
To rule once more — but let what will be, be, 
I am so deeply smitten through the helm 
That without help I cannot last till morn. 
Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 
Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how 
In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 
Rose up from out the bosom of the lake. 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
Holding the sword — and how I rowed across 
And took it, and have worn it, like a king : 
And, wheresoever I am sung or told 
In aftertime, this also shall be known : 
But now delay not : take Excalibur, 
And fling him far into the middle mere : 
Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me 
word." 
To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : 
" It is not meet. Sir King, to leave thee thus. 
Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. 
A little thing may harm a wounded man. 
190 



Yet I thy hest will all perform at full. 

Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." 

So saying, from the ruined shrine he stept 
And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, 
Wliere lay the mighty bones of ancient men. 
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping 

down 
By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock. 
Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 
And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 
And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt : 
For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks. 
Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 
That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood. 
This way and that dividing the swift mind. 
In act to throw : but at the last it seemed 
Better to leave Excalibur concealed 
There in the many- knotted waterflags. 
That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 
So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
" Hast thou performed my mission which I gave ? 
What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ? " 
191 



And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere ; 
" I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
And the wild water lapping on the crag." 

To whom replied King Arthur_, faint and 
pale : 
^' Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name, 
Not rendering true answer, as beseemed 
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight : 
For surer sign had followed, either hand. 
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again 
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 
I bad thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." 

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 
Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere. 
Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought ; 
But when he saw the wonder of the hilt. 
How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
His palms together, and he cried aloud : 
" And if indeed I cast the brand away. 
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note. 
Should thus be lost for ever from the earth. 
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
What good should follow this, if this were done ? 
What harm, undone ? deep harm to disobey. 
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 
192 



Were it well to obey then^ if a king demand 

An act unprofitable, against himself? 

The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 

What record, or what relic of my lord 

Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 

And rumours of a doubt ? but were this kept, 

Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 

Some one might show it at a joust of arms. 

Saying, ' King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 

Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 

Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 

Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 

So might some old man speak in the aftertime 

To all the people, winning reverence. 

But now much honour and much fanie were lost." 

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit. 
And hid Excalibur the second time. 
And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavil}' : 
'' What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ? " 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
'^ I heard the water lapping on the crag. 
And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 

To whom replied King Arthur much in wrath : 
'' Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
Unknightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me ! 
Authority forgets a dying king, 
N 193 



Laid widowed of the power in his eye 
That bowed the will. I see thee what thou art, 
For thou, the latest-left of all my knights. 
In whom should meet the offices of all. 
Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt ; 
Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 
Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 
Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice. 
And the third time may prosper, get thee hence : 
But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 
I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 
Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 
And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged 
Among the bulrush-beds, and clutched the sword. 
And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great 

brand 
Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon. 
And flashing round and round, and whirled in an 

arch. 
Shot like a streamer of the northern morn. 
Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 
By night, with noises of the northern sea. 
So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur : 
But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him 
Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 
194 



And lightly went the other to the King. 

Then spoke King Arthui% drawing thicker 
breath : 
" Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
Speak out : what is it thou hast heard^ or seen ? " 

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
"^ Sir King^ I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 
Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, 
Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die. 
Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men. 
So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him ; 
But when 1 looked again, behold an arm. 
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
That caught him by the hilt, and brandished him 
Three times, and drew liim under in the mere." 

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard 
" My end draws nigh ; 'tis time that I were gone. 
Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight. 
And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear 
My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 

So saying, from the pavement he half rose. 
Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 
And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 
As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears. 
And would have spoken, but he found not words, 
195 



Then took with care^ and kneeling on one knee. 
O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands. 
And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. 

But, as he walked, King Arthur panted hard. 
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
When all the house is mute. So sighed the King, 
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, '^ Quick, 

quick ! 
I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge. 
Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he 

walked, 
Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 
Before, His own thought drove him, like a goad. 
Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves 
And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
The bare black cliff clanged round him, as he 

based 
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels — 
And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake, 
And the long glories of the winter moon. 

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge. 
Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern. 
Beneath them ; and descending they were ware 
That all the decks were dense with stately forms 
196 



Black-stoled, black- hooded, like a dream — by 

these 
Three Queens with crowns of gold — and from 

them rose 
A cry that shivered to the tingling stars, 
And, as it were one voice an agony 
Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills 
All night in a waste land, where no one comes, 
Or hath come, since the making of the world. 
Then murmm-ed Arthur, " Place me in the barge," 
And to the barge they came. There those three 

Queens 
Put forth their hands, and took the King, and 

wept. 
But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, 
And loosed the shattered casque, and chafed his 

hands. 
And called him by his name, complaining loud. 
And dropping bitter tears against his brow 
Striped with dark blood : for all his face was 

white 
And colourless, and like the withered moon 
Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ; 
And all his greaves and cuisses dashed with drops 
Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls — 
That made his forehead like a rising sun 
197 



High from the dais-throne — were parched with 

dust ; 
Or, clotted into points and hanging loose. 
Mixed with the knightly growth that fringed his 

lips. 
So like a shattered column lay the King ; 
Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest. 
From spur to plume a star of tournament. 
Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged 
Before the ej^es of ladies and of kings. 

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere, 
" Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
For now I see the true old times are dead, 
When every morning brought a noble chance, 
And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
Such times have been not since the light that led 
The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
But now the whole round table is dissolved 
Which was an image of the mighty world ; 
And I, the last, go forth companionless. 
And the days darken round me, and the years. 
Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : 
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new. 
And God fulfils Himself in many ways. 
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
iq8 



Comfort thyself : what comfort is in me ? 

I have Hved my Hfe, and that which I have 

done 
May He within Himself make pure ! but thou. 
If thou shouldst never see my face again, 
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by 

prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy 

voice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
Both for themselves and those who call them 

friend ? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 
But now farewell. I am going a long way 
With these thou seest — if indeed I go — 
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) 
To the island-valley of Avilion ; 
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 
Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
Deep-meadowed, happy fair with orchard-lawns 
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea. 
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 
So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
199 



Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted 

swan 
That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
With swarthy w^ebs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 
Revolving many memories, till the hull 
Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
And on the mere the Availing died away. 

Tennyson. 



Among the Mountains <:p» ,^> -ii^ <:> 

From " The Excursion." 

SO w^as he lifted gently from the ground. 
And with their freight homeward the 
shepherds moved 
Through the dull mist, I following — when a step, 
A single step, that freed me from the skirts 
Of the blind vapour, opened to my view 
Glory beyond all glory ever seen 
By waking sense or by the dreaming soul ! 
The appearance, instantaneously disclosed. 
Was of a mighty city, boldly say 
A wilderness of building, sinking far 
And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth. 
Far sinking into splendour — w ithout end ! 
200 



Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold^ 

With alabaster domes, and silver spires. 

And blazing terrace upon terrace, high 

Uplifted ; here, serene pavilions bright. 

In avenues disposed ; there, towers begirt 

With battlements that on their restless fronts 

Bore stars — illumination of all gems ! 

By earthly nature had the eifect been wrought 

Upon the dark materials of the storm 

Now pacified ; on them, and on the coves 

And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto 

The vapours had receded, taking there 

Their station under a cerulean sky. 

Oh, 'twas an unimaginable sight ! 

Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald 

turf. 
Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky, 
Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed. 
Molten together, and composing thus. 
Each lost in each, that marvellous array 
Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge 
Fantastic pomp of structure without name. 
In fleecy folds voluminous enwrapped. 
Right in the midst, where interspace appeared 
Of open court, an object like a throne 
Under a shining canopy of state 
Stood fixed ; and fixed resemblances were seen 



To implements of ordinary use, 

But vast in size, in substance glorified ; 

Such as by Hebrew Prophets were beheld 

In vision — forms uncouth of mightiest power, 

For admiration and mysterious awe. 

This little Vale, a dwelling-place of Man, 

Lay low beneath my feet ; twas visible — 

I saw not, but I felt that it was there. 

That which I saw was the revealed abode 

Of spirits in beatitude : my heart 

Swelled in my breast — " I have been dead," I 

cried, 
" And now I live ! Oh ! wherefore do I live ? " 
And with that pang I prayed to be no more ! 

Wordsworth. 

Correlated Greatness <^ <i> <::> <:> 

O NOTHING, in this corporal earth of man. 
That to the imminent heaven of his high 
soul 
Responds with colour and with shadow, can 
Lack correlated greatness. If the scroll 
Where thoughts lie fast in spell of hieroglyph 
Be mighty through its mighty habitants ; 
If God be in His Name ; grave potence if 
The sounds unbind of hieratic chants ; 
202 



All's vast that vastness means. Nay^ I affirm 

Nature is whole in her least things exprest, 

Nor know we with what scope God builds the 

worm. 
Our towns are copied fragments from our breast ; 
And all man's Babylons strive but to impart 
The grandeurs of his Babylonian heart. 

Francis Thompson, 



Lines -c?' ><::> -o o o ^o^ 

COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEV^ ON 
REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A 
TOUR. 

July 13, 1798. 

FIVE years have past ; five summers, with the 
length 
Of five long winters ! and again I hear 
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs 
With a sweet inland murmur. ^ — Once again 
Do 1 behold these steep and lofty cliffs, 
That on a wild secluded scene impress 
Thoughts of more deep seclusion ; and connect 
The landscape with the quiet of the sky. 

^ The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above 
Tintern. 

203 



The day is come when I again repose 
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard- 
tufts, 
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, 
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb 
The wild green landscape. Once again I see 
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines 
Of sportive wood run wild : these pastoral farms, 
Green to the very door ; and wreaths of smoke 
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees ! 
With some uncertain notice, as might seem, 
Of vagrant dw ellers in the houseless woods. 
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire 
The Hermit sits alone. 

These beauteous Forms, 
Through a long absence, have not been to me 
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye : 
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them. 
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, 
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart ; 
And passing even into my purer mind. 
With tranquil restoration ; — feelings too 
Of unremembered pleasure : such, perhaps. 
As have no slight or trivial influence 
204 



On that best portion of a good man's life. 

His little, nameless, unremembered acts 

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust. 

To them I may have owed another gift. 

Of aspect more sublime ; that blessed mood. 

In which the burthen of the mystery. 

In which the heavy and the weary weight 

Of all this unintelligible world. 

Is lightened : — that serene and blessed mood. 

In which the affections gently lead us on, — 

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 

And even the motion of our human blood 

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 

In body, and become a living soul : 

While with an eye made quiet by the power 

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy. 

We see into the life of things. 

If this 
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh ! how oft. 
In darkness, and amid the many shapes 
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir 
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world. 
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart. 
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, 
O sylvan W^ye ! Thou wanderer thro' the 

woods. 
How often has my spirit turned to thee ! 
205 



And now J with gleams of half-extinguished 

thought. 
With many recognitions dim and faint. 
And somewhat of a sad perplexity. 
The picture of the mind revives again : 
While here I stand, not only with the sense 
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts 
That in this moment there is life and food 
For future years. And so I dare to hope. 
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was 

when first 
I came among these hills ; when like a roe 
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides 
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams. 
Wherever nature led : more like a man 
Flying from something that he dreads, than 

one 
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature 

then 
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days. 
And their glad animal movements all gone by) 
To me was all in all. — I cannot paint 
What then I was. The sounding cataract 
Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock. 
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood. 
Their colours and their forms, were then to me 
An appetite ; a feeling and a love, 
206 



That had no need of a remoter charm, 
By thought suppUed, or any interest 
Unborrowed from the eye. — That time is past, 
And all its aching joys are now no more, 
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this 
Faint J, nor mourn nor murmur ; other gifts 
Have followed, for such loss, I would believe, 
Abundant recompence. For I have learned 
To look on nature, not as in the hour 
Of thoughtless youth ; but hearing oftentimes 
The still, sad music of humanity. 
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts : a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused. 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns. 
And the round ocean, and the living air. 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought. 
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I 

still 
A lover of the meadows and the woods. 
And mountains ; and of all that we behold 
From this green earth ; of all the mighty world 
Of eye and ear, both what they half create, 
207 



And what perceive ; well pleased to recognise 
In nature and the language of the sense, 
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 
Of all my normal being. 

Nor perchance, 
If I were not thus taught, should I the more 
Suffer my genial spirits to decay : 
For thou art with me, here, u})on the banks 
Of this fair river ; thou, my dearest Friend, 
My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch 
The language of my former heart, and read 
My former pleasures in the shooting lights 
Of thy wild eyes. Oh ! yet a little while 
May I behold in thee what I was once. 
My dear, dear Sister ! and this prayer I make. 
Knowing that Nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her ; 'tis her privilege. 
Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
From joy to joy : for she can so inform 
The mind that is within us, so impress 
With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues. 
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men. 
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 
The dreary intercourse of daily life. 
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 
208- 



Our cheerful faith that all which we behold 
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon 
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; 
And let the misty mountain winds be free 
To blow against thee : and in after years, 
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind 
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place 
For all sweet sounds and harmonies ; oh ! then, 
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief. 
Should be thy portion, with what healing- 
thoughts 
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me. 
And these my exhortations ! Nor, perchance 
If I should be where I no more can hear 
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these 

gleams 
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget 
That on the banks of this delightful stream 
We stood together ; and that I, so long 
A worshipper of Nature, hither came 
Unwearied in that service : rather say 
With warmer love, oh ! with far deeper zeal 
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget. 
That after many wanderings, many years 
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, 
o 209 



And this green pastoral landscape, were to me 
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake I 

Wordsworth. 



At a Solemn Musick ^i:> <::> ^o ^c:>' 

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's 
joy 5 
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse ; 
Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ 
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to 

pierce ; 
And to our high-raised phantasy present 
That undisturbed song of pure concent 
Aye sung before the sapphire -coloured throne 
To Him that sits thereon, 
With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee ; 
Where the bright seraphim, in burning row. 
Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow ; 
And the cherubic host, in thousand quires. 
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires. 
With those just spirits that wear victorious palms, 
Hymns devout and holy psalms 
Singing everlastingly ; 

That we on earth, with undiscording voice. 
May rightly answer that melodious noise ; 

2IO 



As once we did, till disproportion ed sin 

Jarred against Nature's chimes, and with harsh din 

Broke the fair musick that all creatures made 

To their great Lord, whose love their motion 

swayed 

In perfect diapason, whilst they stood 

In first obedience, and their state of good. 

O, may we soon again renew that song, 

And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long 

To His celestial concert us unite 

To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of 

light. 

Milton. 

Abt Vogler.i:p^ ^^o?^ ^o- ^i::?' ^^> ^o^ 

(AFTER HE HAS BEEN EXTEMPORISING UPON THE 

MUSICAL INSTRUMENT OF HIS INVENTION.) » 

I. 

WOULD that the structure brave, the mani- 
fold music I build. 
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their 

work. 
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as 

when Solomon willed 
Armies of Angels that soar, legions of demons 
that lurk, 

211 



Man, brute, reptile, fly, — alien of end and of 
aim. 

Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell- 
deep removed, — 

Should rush into sight at once as he named the 
ineffable Name, 

And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the 
princess he loved ! 



Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful 

building of mine, 
This which my keys in a crowd pressed and 

importuned to raise ! 
Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart 

now^ and now combine. 
Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master 

his praise ! 
And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge- 
down to hell, 
Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of 

things. 
Then up again swim into sight, having based me 

my palace well, 
Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether 
springs. 

212 



III. 
And another would mount and march, Hke the 

excellent minion he was, 
Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with 

many a crest, 
liaising my rampired walls of gold as transparent 

as glass. 
Eager to do and to die, yield each his place to 

the rest : 
For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with 

fire. 
When a great illumination surprises a festal 

night — 
Outlining round and round Rome's dome from 

space to spire) 
Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride 

of my soul was in sight. 

IV. 

In sight ! Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, 

to match man's birth. 
Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse 

as I ; 
And the emulous heaven yearned down, made 

effort to reach the earth. 
As the earth had done her best, in my passion, 

to scale the sky : 



Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and 

dwelt with mine. 
Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its 

wandering star ; 
Meteor-moons, balls of blaze : and they did not 

pale nor pine, 
For earth had attained to heaven, there was no 

more near nor far. 



Nay more ; for there wanted not who walked in 

the glare and glow. 
Presences plain in the place ; or, fresh from the 

Protoplast, 
Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind 

should blow. 
Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their 

liking at last ; 
Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed 

through the body and gone, 
But were back once more to breathe in an old 

world worth their new ; 
What never had been, was now ; what was, as it 

shall be anon ; 
And what is, — shall I say, matched both? for I 

was made perfect too. 
214 



VI. 

All through my keys that gave their sounds to a 

wish of my soul^ 
All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed 

visibly forth^ 
All through music and me ! For think, had I 

painted the whole, 
Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process 

so wonder- worth : 
Had I written the same, made verse — still, effect 

proceeds from cause. 
Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the 

tale is told ; 
It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to 

laws. 
Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list 

enrolled : — 

VII. 

But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will 

that can. 
Existent behind all laws, that made them and, 

lo, they are ! 
And I know not if, save in this, such a gift be 

allowed to man. 
That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth 

sound, but a star. 

215 



Consider it well : each tone of our scale in itself 

is nought ; 
It is everywhere in the world — loud^ soft, and all 

is said : 
Give it to me to use ! I mix it with two in my 

thought ; 
And^ there ! Ye have heard and seen : consider 

and bow the head ! 



Well, it has gone at last, the palace of music I 

reared ; 
Gone ! and the good tears start, the praises that 

come too slow ; 
For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that 

he feared. 
That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing 

was to go. 
Never to be again ! But many more of the kind 
As good, nay, better perchance : is this your 

comfort to me ? 
To me, who must be saved because I cling with 

my mind 
To the same, same self, same love, same God : 

ay, what was, shall be. 
216 



IX. 

Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee^ the in- 
effable Name ? 
Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made 

with hands I 
What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever 

the same ? 
Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy 

power expands ? 
There shall never be one lost good ! What was, 

shall live as before ; 
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying 

sound ; 
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so 

much good more ; 
On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, 

a perfect round. 



All we have Milled or hoped or dreamed of good 

shall exist ; 
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor 

good, nor power 
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives 

for the melodist 
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
217 



The high that proved too high, the heroic for 

earth too hard, 
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in 

the sky, 
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the 

bard ; 
Enough that He heard it once : we shall hear it 

by and by. 



XI. 

And what is our failure here but a triumph's 

evidence 
For the fullness of the days ? Have we withered 

or agonised ? 
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing 

might issue thence ? 
Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony 

should be prized ? 
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear. 
Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal 

and woe : 
But God has a few of us whom He whispers in 

the ear ; 
The rest may reason and welcome, 'tis we musicians 

know. 

218 



XII. 

Well, it is earth with me ; silence resumes her 

reign : 
I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce. 
Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord 

again. 
Sliding by semitones, till I sink to the minor, — 

yes. 
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien 

ground. 
Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into 

the deep ; 
Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my 

resting-place is found. 
The C Major of this life : so, now 1 will try to 

sleep. 

Robert Browning. 



219 



BOOK VI 
OF SUCH AS THESE 



221 



Introduction 



PIPING down the valleys wild, 
Piping songs of pleasant glee, 
On a cloud I saw a child, 

And he laughing said to me : 

" Pipe a song about a Lamb ! " 
So I piped with merry cheer. 

" Piper, pipe that song again " ; 
So I piped : he wept to hear. 

" Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe ; 

Sing thy songs of happy cheer ! " 
So I sung the same again. 

While he wept with joy to hear. 

^'^ Piper, sit thee down and write 
In a book, that all may read." 

So he vanished from my sight ; 
And I plucked a hollow reed, 
223 



And I made a rural pen, 

And I stained the water clear, 
And I wrote my happy songs 

Every child may joy to hear. 



A Carol 



Blake. 



HE came all so still 
Where His mother was 
As dew in April 1 

That falleth on the grass. 

He came all so still 

Where His mother lay, 
As dew in Aprill 

That falleth on the spray. 

He came all so still 

To His mother's bower 
As dew in Aprill 

That falleth on the flower. 

Mother and maiden 

Was never none but she ! 

Well might such a lady 

God's mother be. 

Anonymous. 

224 



The Lamb 



LITTLE lamb^ who made thee ? 
Dost thou know who made thee^ 
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed 
By the stream and o'er the mead ; 
Gave thee clothing of dehght, 
Softest clothing, woolly, bright ; 
Gave thee such a tender voice. 
Making all the vales rejoice? 

Little lamb, who made thee ? 

Dost thou know who made thee ? 

Little lamb, I'll tell thee ; 

Little lamb, I'll tell thee : 
He is called by thy name. 
For He calls Himself a Lamb. 
He is meek, and He is mild, 
He became a little child. 
I a child and thou a lamb. 
We are called by His name. 

Little lamb, God bless thee ! 

Little lamb, God bless thee ! 

Blake. 



225 



It is a Beauteous Evening o 



IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free ; 
The holy time is quiet as a nun 
Breathless with adoration ; the broad sun 
Is sinking down in his tranquillity ; 
The gentleness of heaven is on the sea : 

o 

Listen ! the mighty Being is awake, 

And doth with his eternal motion make 

A sound like thunder — everlastingly. 

Dear child I dear girl ! that walkest with me here^ 

If thou appear'st untouched by solemn thought, 

Thy nature is not therefore less divine : 

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year ; 

And worshipp'st at the temple's inner shrine, 

God being with thee when we know it not. 

Wordsworth. 

Pippa Passes <:> si:> <c> <c> <:> 

New Year's Day at Asolo in the Trevisan. 

Scene, — A large, mean, airy chamber. A girl, Pippa, 
from the silk-mills, spriiiging out of bed. 

AY! 

Faster and more fast. 

O'er night's brim, day boils at last ; 

226 



D 



Boils J pure gold^ o'er the cloud-cup's brim 
Where spurting and supprest it lay — 
For not a froth-flake touched the rim 
Of yonder gap in the solid grey 
Of the eastern cloudy an hour away ; 
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled, 
Till the whole sunrise, not to be supprest. 
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast 
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed 
the world. 

Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee, 

A mite of my twelve-hours' treasure. 

The least of thy gazes or glances, 

(Be they grants thou art bound to, or gifts above 

measure) 
One of thy choices, or one of thy chances, 
(Be they tasks God imposed thee, or freaks at thy 

pleasure) 
— My Day, if I squander such labour or leisure. 
Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me ! 

Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flowing, 
Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good — 
Thy fitful sunshine minutes, coming, going. 
In which, earth turns from work in gamesome 
mood — ■ 

227 



All shall be mine ! But thou must treat me 

not 
As the prosperous are treated, those who live 
At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot. 
In readiness to take what thou wilt give, 
And free to let alone what thou refusest ; 
For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest 
Me, who am only Pippa — old-year's sorrow. 
Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow — 
Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow 
Sufficient strength of thee for new-year's sorrow. 
All other men and w^omen that this earth 
Belongs to, who all days alike possess. 
Make general plenty cure particular dearth. 
Get more joy, one way, if another, less : 
Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven 
What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven ; 
Sole light that helps me through the year, thy 

sun's ! 
Try, now ! Take Asolo's Four Happiest Ones — 
And let thy morning rain on that superb 
Great haughty Ottima ; can rain disturb 
Her Sebald's homage ? All the while thy rain 
Beats fiercest on her shrub-house window-pane. 
He will but press the closer, breathe more warm 
Against her cheek ; how should she mind the 

storm ? 

228 



And, morning past, if mid-day shed a gloom 

O'er Jules and Phene, — what care bride and 
groom 

Save for their dear selves ? 'Tis their marriage- 
day ; 

And while they leave church, and go home their 

way 
Hand clasping hand,— within each breast would 

be 
Sunbeams and pleasant weather spite of thee ! 
Then, for another trial, obscure thy eve 
With mist,— will Luigi and his mother grieve— 
The Lady and her child, unmatched, forsooth. 
She in her age, as Luigi in his youth, 
For true content? The cheerful town, warm, 

close. 
And safe, the sooner that thou art morose 
Receives them ! And yet once again, outbreak 
In storm at night on Monsignor, they make 
Such stir about,— whom they expect from Rome 
To visit Asolo, his brothers' home. 
And say here masses proper to release 
A soul from pain,— what storm dares hurt his 

peace ? 
Calm would he pray, with his own thoughts to 

ward 
Thy thunder off, nor want the angels' guard ! 
229 



But Pippa — ^^just one such mischance would spoil 

Her day that lightens the next twelvemonth's toil 

At wearisome silk-windings coil on coil ! 

And here I let time slip for nought ! 

Aha, — you foolhardy sunbeam— caught 

With a single splash from my ewer ! 

You that would mock the best pursuer. 

Was my basin over-deep ? 

One splash of water ruins you asleep, 

And up, up, fleet your brilliant bits 

Wheeling and counterwheeling. 

Reeling, broken beyond healing — 

Now grow together on the ceiling ! 

That will task your wits ! 

Whoever quenched fire first, hoped to see 

Morsel after morsel flee 

As merrily, as giddily . . . 

Meantime, what lights my sunbeam on. 

Where settles by degrees the radiant cripple ? 

Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon ? 

New-blown and ruddy as St. Agnes' nipple. 

Plump as the flesh-bunch on some Turk bird's 

poll ! 
Be sure if corals, branching 'neath the ripple 
Of ocean, bud there, — fairies watch unroll 
Such turban-flowers ; I say, such lamps disperse 
Thick red flame through that dusk green universe ! 
230 



I am queen of thee, floweret ; 

And each fleshy blossom 

Preserve I not — (safer 

Than leaves that embower it, 

Or shells that embosom) 

— From weevil and chafer ? 

Laugh through my pane, then ; solicit the bee ; 

Gibe him, be sure ; and, in midst of thy glee. 

Love thy queen, worship me ! 

— Worship whom else ? For am I not, this day, 
Whate'er I please ? What shall I please to-day ? 
My morning, noon, eve, night — how spend my 

day? 
To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk. 
The whole year round, to earn just bread and 

milk : 
But, this one day, I have leave to go. 
And play out my fancy's fullest games ; 
I may fancy all day — and it shall be so — 
That I taste of the pleasures, am called by the 

names 
Of the Happiest Four in our Asolo ! 

See! Up the Hill-side yonder, through the 

morning. 
Some one shall love me, as the world calls love : 
231 



I am no less than Ottima, take warning ! 

The gardens, and the great stone house above. 

And other house for shrubs, all glass in front, 

Are mine ; where Sebald steals, as he is wont, 

To court me, while old Luca yet reposes ; 

And therefore, till the shrub-house door uncloses, 

I . . . what, now ? — give abundant cause for 

prate 
About me — Ottima, I mean — of late, 
Too bold, too confident she'll still face down 
The spitefullest of talkers in our town — 
How we talk in the little town below ! 
But love, love, love — there's better love, I 

know ! 
This foolish love was only day's first offer ; 
I choose my next love to defy the scoffer : 
For do not our Bride and Bridegroom sally 
Out of Possagno church at noon ? 
Their house looks over Orcana valley — 
Why should I not be the bride as soon 
As Ottima ? For 1 saw, beside. 
Arrive last night that little bride — 
Saw, if you call it seeing her, one flash 
Of the pale, snow- pure cheek and black bright 

tresses. 
Blacker than all except the black eyelash ; 
I wonder she contrives those lids no dresses ! 
232 



— So strict was she, the veil 

Should cover close her pale 

Pure cheeks — a bride to look at and scarce 

touch, 
Scarce touch, remember, Jules ! — for are not 

such 
Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature. 
As if one's breath would fray the lily of a creature ? 
A soft and easy life these ladies lead ! 
Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed — 
Oh, save that brow its virgin dimness. 
Keep that foot its lady primness. 
Let those ancles never swerve 
From their exquisite reserve. 
Yet have to trip along the streets like me. 
All but naked to the knee ! 
How will she ever grant her Jules a bliss 
So startling as her real first infant kiss ? 
Oh, no — not envy, this ! 

— Not envy, sure ! — for if you gave me 

Leave to take or to refuse. 

In earnest, do you think I'd choose 

That sort of new love to enslave me ? 

Mine should have lapped me round from the 

beginning ; 
As little fear of losing it as winning ! 
233 



Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their 

wives, 
And only parents' love can last our lives : 
At eve the son and mother, gentle pair, 
Commune inside our Turret ; what prevents 
My being Luigi ? while that mossy lair 
Of lizards through the winter-time, is stirred 
With each to each imparting swxet intents 
For this new-year, as brooding bird to bird — 
(For I observe of late, the evening walk 
Of Luigi and his mother, always ends 
Inside our ruined turret, where they talk. 
Calmer than lovers, yet more kind than friends) 
Let me be cared about, kept out of harm. 
And schemed for, safe in love as with a charm ; 
Let me be Luigi ! ... If I only knew 
What was my mother's face — my father, too ! 
Nay, if you came to that, best love of all 
Is God's ; then why not have God's love befall 
Myself as, in the Palace by the Dome, 
Monsignor ? — who to-night will bless the home 
Of his dead brother ; and God will bless in 

turn 
That heart which beats, those eyes which mildly 

burn 
With love for all men : I, to-night at least. 
Would be that holy and beloved priest ! 
234 



Now wait ! — even I already seem to share 

In God's love : what does New-year's hymn 

declare ? 
What other meaning do these verses bear ? 

All service ranks the same with God : 

If now, as formerlij He trod 

Paradise, His presence Jills 

Our earth, each only as God wills 

Can work — God's puppets, best and worst, 

Are we ; there is no last nor^first. 

Say not " a small event ! " Why '• small " ? 
Costs it more pain that this, ye call 
A "great event,'' should come to pass. 
Than that ? Untwine me from the mass. 
Of deeds which make up life, one deed 
Power shall fall short in, or exceed ! 

And more of it, and more of it ! — oh, yes — 
I will pass by, and see their happiness, 
And envy none — being just as great, no doubt, 
Useful to men, and dear to God, as they ! 
A pretty thing to care about 
So mightily, this single holiday ! 
But let the sun shine ! Wherefore repine? 
— With thee to lead me, O Day of mine, 
Down the grass-path grey with dew, 
235 



Under the pine-wood^ blind with boughs, 
Where the swallow never flew 
As yet, nor cicale dared carouse — 
Dared carouse ! 

[She enters the street. 

I. — Morning. Up the Hill-side, inside the Shruh- 
house. Luca's Wife, Ottima, mid her Par- 
amour, the German Sebald. 

Sebald (sings). 

Let the watchins, lids tvink ! 
Days a-hlaze with eyes, think — 
Deep into the night, drink ! 
Ottima. Night ? Such may be your Rhine-land 
nights, perhaps ; 
But this blood-red beam through the shutter's 

chink, 
— We call such light, the morning's : let us see ! 
Mind how you grope your way, though ! How 

these tall 
Naked geraniums straggle I Push the lattice — 
Behind that frame ! — Nay, do I bid you ? — Sebald, 
It shakes the dust down on me ! Why, of 

course 
The slide-bolt catches. — Well, are you content. 
Or must I find you something else to spoil } 
236 



Kiss and be friends^ my Sebald I Is it full 

morning ? 
Oh^ don't speak then ! 

Sebald. Ay, thus it used to be ! 

Ever your house was, I remember, shut 
Till mid-day — I observed that, as I strolled 
On mornings thro' the vale here : country girls 
Were noisy, washing garments in the brook — 
Hinds drove the slow white oxen up the hills — 
But no, your house was mute, would ope no 

eye— 
And wisely — you were plotting one thing there. 
Nature, another outside : I looked up — 
Rough white wood shutters, rusty iron bars, 
Silent as death, blind in a flood of light ; 
Oh, I remember ! — and the peasants laughed 
And said, " The old man sleeps with the young 

wife ! " 
This house was his, this chair, this window — his ! 
Ottima. Ah, the clear morning ! I can see St. 

Mark's : 
That black streak is the belfry. Stop : Vicenza 
Should lie . . . There's Padua, plain enough, that 

blue! 
Look o'er my shoulder — follow my finger — 

Sebald. Morning ? 

It seems to me a night with a sun added : 
237 



Where's dew ? where's freshness ? That bruised 

plant, I bruised 
In getting thro' the lattice yestereve, 
Droops as it did. See, here's my elbow's mark 
In the dust on the sill. 

Ottimci. Oh, shut the lattice, pi*ay ! 

Sehald. Let me lean out. I cannot scent blood 
here, 
Foul as the morn may be — 

There, shut the world out ! 
How do you feel now, Ottima ? There — curse 
The world, and all outside ! Let us throw oft' 
This mask: how do you bear yourself.'' Let's 

out 
With all of it ! 

Ottima. Best never speak of it. 

Sehald. Best speak again and yet again of it, 
Till words cease to be more than words. " His 

blood," 
For instance — let those two words mean " His 

blood " 
And nothing more. Notice — I'll say them now, 
"His blood." 

Ottima. Assuredly if I repented 

The deed — 

Sehald. Repent } who should repent, or why ? 
What puts that in your head t Did I once say 
238 



That I repented ? 

Ottima. No — I said the deed — 

Sehald. '^^The deed/' and ^^the event/' — just 
now it was 
" Our passion's fruit " — the devil take such cant 1 
Say^ once and always, Luca was a wittol, 
I am his cut-throat, you are — 

Ottima. Here is the wine — 

I brought it when we left the house above — 
And glasses too — wine of both sorts. Black ?• 
white, then ? 
Sebald. But am not I his cut-throat ? What 

are you ? 
Ottima. There, trudges on his business from the 
Duomo 
Benet the Capuchin, with his brown hood 
And bare feet — always in one place at church, 
Close under the stone wall by the south entry ; 
I used to take him for a brown cold piece 
Of the wall's self, as out of it he rose 
To let .me pass — at first, I say, I used — 
Now — so has that dumb figure fastened on me — 
I rather should account the plastered wall 
A piece of him, so chilly does it strike. 
This, Sebald ? 

Sehald. No — the white wine — the white wine 1 
Well, Ottima, I promised no new year 
239 



Should rise on us the ancient shameful way, 
Nor does it rise : pour on ! To your black eyes ! 
Do you remember last damned New Year's day ? 

Ottima. You brought those foreign prints. We 
looked at them 
Over the wine and fruit. I had to scheme 
To get him from the fire. Nothing but saying 
His own set w^ants the proof-mark, roused him up 
To hunt them out. 

Sehctld. 'Faith, he is not alive 

To fondle you before my face ! 

Ottima. Do you 

Fondle me, then ! who means to take your life 
For that, my Sebald } 

Sebald. Hark you, Ottima, 

One thing's to guard against. We'll not make 

much 
One of the other — that is, not make more 
Parade of w^armth, childish officious coil. 
Than yesterday — as if, sweet, I supposed 
Proof upon proof was needed now, now first. 
To show I love you — yes, still love you — love you 
In spite of Luca and what's come to him 
— Sure sign we had him ever in our thoughts, 
White sneering old reproachful face and all ! 
W^e'll even quarrel, love, at times, as if 
We still could lose each other — were not tied 
240 



By this — conceive you ? 

Ottima. Love — 

Sebald. Not tied so sure — 

Because tho' I was wrought upon — have struck 
His insolence back into him — am I 
So surely yours ? — therefore, forever yours ? 

Ottima. Love, to be wise, (one counsel pays 
another) 
Should we have — months ago — when first we 

loved. 
For instance that May morning we two stole 
Under the green ascent of sycamores — 
If we had come upon a thing like that 
Suddenly — 

Sebald. " A thing "... there again — " a 
thing ! " 

Ottima. Then, Venus' body, had we come upon 
My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered corpse 
Within there, at his couch-foot, covered close — 
Would you have pored upon it ? Why persist 
In poring now upon it ? For 'tis here — 
As much as there in the deserted house — 
You caimot rid your eyes of it : for me. 
Now he is dead I hate him worse — I hate — 
Dare you stay here ? I would go back and hold 
His two dead hands, and say, I hate you worse 
Luca, than — 

Q 241 



Sehald. Off, off ; take your hands off mine ! 
'Tis the hot evening — off ! oh, morning, is it ? 
Ottiina. There's one thing must be done — you 
know what thing. 
Come in and help to carry. We may sleep 
Anywhere in the whole wide house to-night. 
Sehald. What would come, think you, if we let 
him lie 
Just as he is } Let him lie there until 
The angels take him : he is turned by this 
Off from his face, beside, as you will see. 

Ottima. This dusty pane might serve for look- 
ing-glass. 
Three, four — four grey hairs ! Is it so you said 
A plait of hair should wave across my neck } 
No — this way! 

Sehald. Ottima, I would give your neck. 

Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts of 

yours. 
That this were undone ! Killing } — Kill the 

world 
So Luca lives again ! — Ay, lives to sputter 
His fulsome dotage on you — yes, and feign 
Surprise that I returned at eve to sup. 
When all the morning I was loitering here — 
Bid me dispatch my business and begone. 
I would — ■ 

242 



Ottima. See ! 

Sebakl. Noj I'll finish ! Do you think 

I fear to speak the bare truth once for all ? 
All we have talked of is, at bottom, fine 
To suffer — there's a recompense in guilt ; 
One must be venturous and fortunate — 
What is one young for, else ? In age we'll sigh 
O'er the wild, reckless, wicked days flown over ; 
Still we have lived ! The vice was in its place. 
But to have eaten Luca's bread, have worn 
His clothes, have felt his money swell my purse — 
Do lovers in romances sin that way ? 
Why, I was starving when I used to call 
And teach you music — starving while you plucked 

me 
These flowers to smell ! 

Ottima. My poor lost friend ! 

Sehald. He gave me 

Life — nothing less : what if he did reproach 
My perfidy, and threaten, and do more — 
Had he no right ? What was to wonder at ? 
He sate by us at table quietly — 
Why must you lean across till our cheeks touch'd ? 
Could he do less than make pretence to strike 

me? 
'Tis not for the crime's sake — I'd commit ten 

crimes 

243 



Greater to have this crime wip6d out — undone ! 
And you — O^ how feel you ? feel you for me ? 

Ottima. Well^ then — I love you better now than 
ever — 
And best (look at me while I speak to you) — 
Best for the crime — nor do I grieve, in truth. 
This mask, this simulated ignorance, 
This affectation of simplicity. 
Falls off our crime ; this naked crime of ours 
May not, now, be looked over — look it down, 

then! 
Great ? let it be great — but the joys it brought. 
Pay they or no its price ? Come — they or it ! 
Speak not ! The past, would you give up the past 
Such as it is, pleasure and crime together ? 
Give up that noon I owned my love for you — 
The garden's silence — even the single bee 
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopt 
And where he hid you only could surmise 
By some campanula's chalice set a-swing 
As he clung there — ^^ Yes, I love you ! " 

Sehald. And I drew 

Back ; put far back your face with both my hands 
Lest you should grow too full of me — your face 
So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body ! 

Ottima. And when I ventured to receive you 
here, 

244 



Made you steal hither in the mornings — 

Sehald. When 

I used to look up 'neath the shrub-house here, 
Till the red fire on its glazed windows spread 
To a yellow haze ? 

Ottima. Ah — my sign was, the sun 

Inflamed the sere side of yon chestnut tree 
Nipt by the first frost. 

Sebalcl. You would always laugh 

At my wet boots — I had to stride thro' grass 
Over my ancles. 

Ottima. Then our crowning night — 

Sebalcl. The July night ? 

Ottima. The day of it too, Sebald ! 

When the heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with 

heat. 
Its black-blue canopy seemed let descend 
Close on us both, to weigh down each to each. 
And smother up all life except our life. 
So lay we till the storm came. 

Sebald. How it came ! 

Ottima. Buried in woods we lay, you recollect ; 
Swift ran the searching tempest overhead ; 
And ever and anon some bright white shaft 
Burnt thro' the pine-tree roof^here burnt and 

there. 
As if God's messenger thro' the close wood screen 

245 



Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture, 
Feeling for guilty thee and me : then broke 
The thunder like a whole sea overhead — 

Sebald. Yes ! 

Ottima. — While I stretched myself upon 

you, hands 
To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and shook 
All my locks loose, and covered you with them — 
You, Sebald, the same you — 

Sebald. Slower, Ottima — 

Ottima. And as we lay — 

Sebald. Less vehemently ! Love me — 

Forgive me — take not words — mere words — to 

heart — 
Your breath is worse than wine ! Breathe slow, 

speak slow — 
Do not lean on me — 

Ottima. Sebald as we lay. 

Rising and falling only with our pants. 
Who said, " Let death come now — 'tis right to die ! 
Right to be punished — nought completes such 

bliss 
But woe ! " Who said that ? 

Sebald. How did we ever rise ? 

Was't that we slept ? Why did it end ? 

Ottima. I felt you. 

Fresh tapering to a point the ruffled ends 
246 



Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips — 
(My hair is fallen now — knot it again !) 
Sebald. I kiss you now^ clear Ottima, now, and now ! 
This way ? Will you forgive me — be once more 
My great Queen ? 

Otlima. Bind it thrice about my brow ; 

Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress, 
Magnificent in sin. Say that ! 

Sebald. I crown you 

My great white queen, my spirit's arbitress, 
Magnificent — 

\F?-07n without is heard the voice of Pippa, 
sinmns: — 

The years at the spring, 
And days at the morn ; 
'Mornings at seven ; 
The hill-side s dew-pearled : 
The lark's on the wing ; 
The snail's on the thorn ; 
God's in His heaven — 
A IVs right with the world ! 

[PippA passes. 

Sebald. God's in His heaven ? Do you hear 
that ? Who spoke ? 
You, you spoke ! 

Ottima. Oh — that little ragged girl ! 

247 



She must have rested on the step — we give them 
But this one holiday the whole year round. 
Did you ever see our silk-mills — their inside ? 
There are ten silk-milks now belong to you. 
She stoops to pick my double heartsease . . . Sh ! 
She does not hear — you call out louder ! 

Sebald. Leave me ! 

Go, get your clothes on — dress those shoulders ! 

Ottima. Sebald ? 

Sebald. Wipe off that paint. I hate you I 

Ottima. Miserable ! 

Sebald. My God ! and she is emptied of it now ! 
Outright now ! — how miraculously gone 
All of the grace — had she not strange grace 

once ? 
Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes. 
No purpose holds the features up together, 
Only the cloven brow and puckered chin 
Stay in their places — and the very hair. 
That seemed to have a sort of life in it. 
Drops, a dead web ! 

Ottima. Speak to me — speak not of me ! 

Sebald. — That round great full-orbed face, 
where not an angle 
Broke the delicious indolence — all broken ! 

Ottima. To me — not of me ! — ungrateful, per- 
jured cheat — 

248 



A coward, too — but ingrate's worse than all ! 
Beggar — my slave — a fawning, cringing lie ! 
Leave me ! — betray me ! — I can see your drift — 
A lie that walks, and eats, and drinks ! 

SehahL My God ! 

Those morbid, olive, faultless shoulder-blades — 
I should have known there was no blood beneath ! 
Ottima. You hate me, then? You hate me, 

then ? 
Sehald. To think 

She would succeed in her absurd attempt. 
And fascinate by sinning : and show herself 
Superior — Guilt from its excess, superior 
To Innocence. That little peasant's voice 
Has righted all again. Though I be lost, 
I know which is the better, never fear. 
Of vice or virtue, purity or lust, 
Nature, or trick — I see what I have done. 
Entirely now ! Oh, I am proud to feel 
Such torments — let the world take credit thence — 
I, having done my deed, pay too its price ! 
I hate, hate — curse you ! God's in His heaven ! 

Ottima. —Me ! 

Me ! no, no, Sebald — not yourself — kill me ! 
Mine is the whole crime — do but kill me — then 
Yourself — then — presently — first hear me speak — 
I always meant to kill myself — wait, you ! 
249 



Lean on my breast — not as a breast ; don't love 

me 
The more because you lean on me, my own 
Heart's Sebald ! There — there — both deaths 

presently ! 
Sehald. My brain is drowned now — quite 

drowned : all I feel 
Is . . . is at swift-recurring intervals, 
A hurrying-down within me, as of waters 
Loosened to smother up some ghastly pit — 
There they go — whirls from a black, fiery sea ! 
Ottima. Not to me, God — to him be merciful! 

Talk hy the way, while Pippa is passing from the 
Hillside to Orcana. Foreign Students of paiiit- 
ifig and sculpture, from Venice, assembled op- 
posite the house of Jules, a young French 
statuary. 

\st Student. Attention ! my own post is beneath 
this window, but the pomegranate clump yonder 
will hide three or four of you with a little 
squeezing, and Schramm and his pipe must lie 
flat in the balcony. Four, five — who's a de- 
faulter? We want everybody, for Jules must 
not be suffered to hurt his bride when the jest's 
found out. 

250 



2ud Student. All here ! Only our poet's away 
— never having much meant to be present, 
moonstrike him ! The airs of that fellow, that 
Giovacchino ! He was in violent love with 
himself, and had a fair prospect of thriving in 
his suit, so unmolested was it, — when suddenly 
a woman falls in love with him, too ; and out 
of pure jealousy he takes himself off to Trieste, 
immortal poem and all — whereto is this pro- 
phetical epitaph appended already, as Bluphocks 
assures me — '' Here a mammoth-poem lies, — Fouled 
to death by butter jlies.'' His own fault, the 
simpleton ! Instead of cramp couplets, each like 
a knife in your entrails, he should write, says 
Bluphocks, both classically and intelligibly. — 
JEsculainus, an Ejnc. Catalogue of the drugs : 
Hebe's plaister — One strip Cools your lip. Phoebus' 
emulsion — One bottle Clears your throttle. Merairy's 
bolus — One box Cures. . . . 

3rd Student. Subside, my fine fellow ! If the 
marriage was over by ten o'clock, Jules will 
certainly be here in a minute with his bride. 

2«f/ Student. Good ! — Only, so should the poet's 
muse have been universally acceptable, says 
Bluphocks, et canibus nostris . . . and Delia not 
better known to our literary dogs than the boy — 
Giovacchino ! 

251 



1*^ Student. To the point, now. Where's 
Gottlieb, the new-comer ? Oh, — hsten, Gottlieb, 
to what has called down this piece of friendly 
vengeance on Jules, of which we now assemble 
to witness the winding-up. We are all agreed, 
all in a tale, observe, when Jules shall burst out 
on us in a fury by and by : I am spokesman — 
the verses that are to undeceive Jules bear my 
name of Lutwyche — but each professes himself 
alike insulted by this strutting stone-squarer, 
who came singly from Paris to Munich, and 
thence with a crowd of us to Venice and 
Possagno here, but proceeds in a day or two 
alone again — oh, alone, indubitably ! — to Rome 
and Florence. He, forsooth, take up his por- 
tion with these dissolute, brutalised, heartless 
bunglers ! — So he was heard to call us all : now 
is Schramm brutalised, I should like to know } 
Am I heartless ? 

Gottlieb. Why, somewhat heartless : for, suppose 
Jules a coxcomb as much as you choose, still, for 
this mere coxcombry, you will have brushed off — 
what do folks style it.'' — the bloom of his life. 
Is it too late to alter } These love-letters, now, 
you call his ... I can't laugh at them. 

Mh Student. Because you never read the sham 
letters of our inditing which drew forth these. 
252 



Gottlieb. His discovery of the truth will be 
frightful. 

4<th Student. That's the joke. But you should 
have joined us at the beginning ; there's no 
doubt he loves the girl — loves a model he might 
hire by the hour ! 

Gottlieb. See here ! " He has been ac- 
customed/' he writes, " to have Canova's women 
about him, in stone, and the world's women 
beside him, in flesh ; these being as much below, 
as those, above — his soul's aspiration : but now 
he is to have the real." . . . There you laugh 
again ! I say, you wipe off the very dew of his 
youth. 

1st Student. Schramm ! — (Take the pipe out ot 
his mouth, somebody) — Will Jules lose the bloom 
of his youth ? 

Schramm. Nothing worth keeping is ever lost 
in this world : look at a blossom — it drops 
presently, having done its service and lasted 
its time ; but fruits succeed, and where would 
be the blossom's place could it continue.'' As 
well affirm that your eye is no longer in your 
body, because its earliest favourite, whatever it 
may hate first loved to look on, is dead and done 
with — as that any affection is lost to the soul 
when its first object, whatever happened first 
253 



to satisfy it, is superseded in due course. Keep 
but ever looking, whether with the body's eye 
or the mind's, and you will soon find something 
to look on ! Has a man done wondering at 
women ? — There follow men, dead and alive, to 
wonder at. Has he done wondering at men r — 
There's God to wonder at : and the faculty of 
wonder may be, at the same time, old and tired 
enough with respect to its first object, and yet 
young and fresh sufficiently, so far as concerns 
its novel one. Thus. . . . 

1^/ Student. Put Schramm's pipe into his mouth 
again ! There, you see ! Well, this — Jules . . . 
a wretched fribble — oh, I watched his disportings 
at Possagno, the other day I Canova's gallery — 
you know : there he marches first resolvedly past 
great works by the dozen without vouchsafing 
an eye : all at once he stops full at the Psiche- 
fanciulla — cannot pass that old acquaintance 
without a nod of encouragement — " In your new 
place, beauty ? Then behave yourself as well 
here as at Munich — I see you ! " Next he posts 
himself deliberately before the unfinished Pieta 
for half an hour without moving, till up he starts 
of a sudden, and thrusts his very nose "into — I 
say, into — the group ; by which gesture you are 
informed that precisely the sole point he had 
254 



not fully mastered in Canova's practice was a 
certain method of using the drill in the articula- 
tion of the knee-joint — and that, likewise, has 
he mastered at length! Good-bye, therefore, 
to poor Canova — whose gallery no longer need 
detain his successor Jules, the predestinated novel 
thinker in marble ! 

5th Student. Tell him about the women — go 
on to the women ! 

1st Student. Why, on that matter he could 
never be supercilious enough. How should we 
be other (he said) than the poor devils you see, 
with those debasing habits we cherish ? He was 
not to wallow in that mire, at least : he would 
wait, and love only at the proper time, and mean- 
while put up with the Psiche-fanciulla. Now I 
happened to hear of a young Greek — real Greek 
— girl at Malamocco ; a true Islander, do you see, 
with Alciphron's '^ hair like sea-moss " — Schramm 
knows ! — white and quiet as an apparition, and 
fourteen years old at farthest, — a daughter of 
Natalia, so she swears — that hag Natalia, who 
helps us to models at three lire an hour. We 
selected this girl for the heroine of our jest. So, 
first, Jules received a scented letter — somebody 
had seen his Tydeus at the academy, and my 
picture was nothing to it — a profound admirer 
255 



bade him persevere — would make herself known 
to him ere long — (Paolina, my little friend of the 
Fenice, transcribes divinely). And in due time^ 
the mysterious correspondent gave certain hints 
of her peculiar charms — the pale cheeks, the 
black hair — whatever, in short, had struck us in 
our Malamocco model : we retained her name, 
too — Phene, which is by interpretation, sea eagle. 
Now, think of Jules finding himself distinguished 
from the herd of us by such a creature ! In his 
very first answer he proposed marrying his moni- 
tress : and fancy us over these letters, two, three 
times a day, to receive and dispatch ! I concocted 
the main of it : relations were in the way — secrecy 
must be observed — in fine, would he wed her on 
trust, and only speak to her when they were in- 
dissolubly united ? St — st — Here they come ! 

6tk Sfudoit. Both of them ! Heaven's love, 
speak softly ! speak within yourselves ! 

5th Student. Look at the bridegroom ! Half his 
hair in storm, and half in calm, — patted down over 
the left temple, — like a frothy cup one blows on 
to cool it ! and the same old blouse that he 
murders the marble in ! 

2nd Student. Not a rich vest like yours, Hanni- 
bal Scratchy ! — rich, that your facet,may the better 
set it off! 

256 



6th Student. And the bride ! Yes, sure enough, 
our Phene ! Should you have known her in her 
clothes ? How magnificently pale ! 

Gottlieb. She does not also take it for earnest, I 
hope ? 

1*^ Studejit. Oh, Natalia's concern, that is ! We 
settle with Natalia. 

6th Student. She does not speak — has evidently 
let out no word. The only thing is, will she 
equally remember the rest of her lesson, and 
repeat correctly all those verses which are to 
break the secret to Jules } 

Gottlieb. How he gazes on her ! Pity — pity ! 

1*^ Student. They go in — now^, silence ! You 
three, — not nearer the window, mind, than that 
pomegranate — ^,just where the little girl, who a 
few minutes ago passed us singing, is seated ! 

n. — Noon. Over Orcana. The house of Jules, 
who crosses its threshold with Phene — she is 
silent, on which Jules begins — 

Do not die, Phene — I am yours now — you 
Are mine now — let fate reach me how she likes. 
If you'll not die — so, never die ! Sit here — 
My workroom's single seat : I over-lean 
This length of hair and lustrous front — they turn 
R 257 



Like an entire flower upward — eyes — lips — last 
Your chin — no, last your throat turns — 'tis their 

scent 
Pulls down my face upon you ! Nay, look ever 
This one way till I change, grow you — I could 
Change into you, beloved ! 

You by me, 
And I by you — this is your hand in mine — 
And side by side we sit : all's true. Thank God ! 
I have spoken — speak, you ! 

— O, my life to come ! 
My Tydeus must be carved, that's there in clay ; 
Yet how be carved, with you about the chamber ? 
Where must I place you ? When I think that 

once 
This room-full of rough block-work seemed my 

heaven 
Without you ! Shall I ever work again — 
Get fairly into my old ways again — 
Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait. 
My hand transfers its lineaments to stone ? 
Will my mere fancies live near you, my truth — 
The live truth— passing and repassing me — 
Sitting beside me ? 

Now speak! 

Only, first. 
See, all your letters ! Was't not well contrived ? 

258 



Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe ; she keeps 
Your letters next her skin: which drops out 

foremost ? 
Ahj — this that swam down like a first moonbeam 
Into my world ! 

Again those eyes complete 
Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow, 
Of all my room holds ; to return and rest 
On me, with pity, yet some wonder too — 
As if God bade some spirit plague a world. 
And this were the one moment of sm-prise 
And sorrow while she took her station, pausing 
O'er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy I 
What gaze you at ? Those ? Books, I told you 

of; 
Let your first word to me rejoice them, too : 
This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red 
Bistre and azure by Bessarion's scribe — 
Read this line . . . no, shame — Homer's be the 

Greek 
First breathed me from the lips of my Greek girl 
My Odyssey in coarse black vivid type 
With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page and page, 
To mark great places with true gratitude ; 
" He said, and on Antinous directed 
"A hitter shaft" ... a flower blots out the rest ! 
Again upon your search } My statues, then ! 

259 



— Ah, do not mind that — better that will look 
When cast in bronze — an Almaign Kaiser, that, 
Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on 

hip. 
This, rather, turn to ! What, unrecognised ? 
I thought you would have seen that here you sit 
As I imagined you, — Hippolyta, 
Naked upon her bright Numidian horse ! 
Recall you this, then ? " Carve in bold relief" — 
So you commanded — " carve, against I come, 
'' A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was, 
" Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free, 
" W^ho rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch : 
'' ' Praise those who slew Hipparchus,' cry the 

guests, 
" ' While oer thy head the singer s myrtle waves 
" ' As erst above our chaynpions' : stand up, all / ' " 
See, I have laboured to express your thought ! 
Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and anus, 
(Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides. 
Only consenting at the branches' end 
They strain toward) serves for frame to a sole 

face — 
The Praiser's — in the centre — who with eyes 
Sightless, so bend they back to light inside 
His brain where visionary forms throng up, 
Sings, minding not that palpitating arch 
260 



Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine 
From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns 

cast off, 
V^iolet and parsley crowns to trample on — 
Sings/ pausing as the patron-ghosts approve. 
Devoutly their unconquerable hymn ! 
But you must say a " well " to that — say, " well ! " 
Because you gaze — am 1 fantastic, sweet ? 
Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble — marbly 
Even to the silence ! why before I found 
The real flesh Phene, I inured myself 
To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff 
For better nature's birth by means of art : 
With me, each substance tended to one form 
Of beauty — to the human Archetype — 
On every side occurred suggestive germs 
Of that — the tree, the flower — or take the fruit — 
Some rosy shape, continuing the peach. 
Curved beewise o'er it's bough ; as rosy limbs, 
Depending, nestled in the leaves — and just 
From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang : 
But of the stuffs one can be master of. 
How I divined their capabilities ! 
From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk 
That yields your outline to the air's embrace. 
Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom ; 
Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure 
261 



To cut its one confided thought clean out 
Of all the world : but marble ! — 'neath my tools 
More pliable than jelly — as it were 
Some clear primordial creature dug from depths 
In the Earth's hearty where itself breeds itself, 
And whence all baser substance may be worked ; 
Refine it off to air, you may — condense it 
Down to the diamond ; — is not metal there. 
When o'er the sudden specks my chisel trips ? 
— Not flesh — as flake off flake I scale, approach. 
Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep ? 
Lurks flame in no strange windings where, 

surprised 
By the swift implement sent home at once. 
Flushes and glowings radiate and hover 
About its track ? — 

Phene ? what — why is this ? 
That whitening cheek, those still-dilating eyes ! 
Ah, you will die — I knew that you would die ! 

Phene begins, on his having long remained silent. 

Now the end's coming — to be sure, it must 
Have ended sometime ! Tush — why need I speak 
Their foolish speech ? I cannot bring to mind 
One half of it, besides ; and do not care 
For old Natalia now, nor any of them. 
262 



Oh, you — what are you ? — if I do not try 
To say the words Natalia made me learn, 
To please your friends, — it is to keep myself 
Where your voice lifted me, by letting it 
Proceed — but can it ? Even you, perhaps. 
Cannot take up, now you have once let fall. 
The music's life, and me along with that — 
No, or you would ! We'll stay, then, as we are 
— Above the world. 

You creature with the eyes ! 
If I could look for ever up to them. 
As now you let me, — I believe, all sin, 
All memory of wrong done or suffering borne, 
Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth 
Whence all that's low comes, and there touch and 

stay 
— Never to overtake the rest of me. 
All that, unspotted, reaches up to you. 
Drawn by those eyes ! What rises is myself. 
Not so the shame and suffering ; but they sink. 
Are left, I rise above them — Keep me so 
Above the world ! 

But you sink, for your eyes 
Are altering — altered ! Stay — " I love you, love 

you" . . . 
I could prevent it if I understood 
More of your words to me — was't in the tone 
263 



Or the words, your power ? 

Or stay — I will repeat 
Their speech, if that contents you! Only, 

change 
No more, and I shall find it presently 
— Far back here, in the brain yourself filled up. 
Natalia threatened me that harm would follow 
Unless I spoke their lesson to the end, 
But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you. 
Your friends, — Natalia said they were your 

friends 
And meant you well, — because I doubted it. 
Observing (what was very strange to see) 
On every face, so different in all else, 
The same smile girls like us are used to bear. 
But never men, men cannot stoop so low ; 
Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile, 
That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit 
Which seems to take possession of this world 
And make of God their tame confederate. 
Purveyor to their appetites . . . you know ! 
But no — Natalia said they were your friends. 
And they assented while they smiled the more. 
And all came round me, — that thin Englishman 
With light, lank hair seemed leader of the rest ; 
He held a paper — ''^ What we want," said he. 
Ending some explanation to his friends — 
264 



'' Is something slow, involved and mystical, 
^^To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste 
" And lure him on, so that, at innermost 
'^'^ Where he seeks sweetness' soul, he may find— 

this ! 
'' — As in the apple's core, the noisome fly : 
'^ For insects on the rind are seen at once, 
" And brushed aside as soon, but this is found 
" Only when on the lips or loathing tongue." 
And so he read what I have got by heart — 
I'll speak it,— '^Do not die, love! I am 

yours" . . . 
Stop— is not that, or like that, part of words 
Yourself began by speaking ? Strange to lose 
What costs much pains to learn ! Is this more 

right ? 

/ am a painter who cannot paint ; 
In my life, a devil rather than saint. 
In my brain, as poor a creature too — 
No end to all I cannot do ! 
Yet do one thing at least I can — 
Love a man, or hate a man 
Supremely : thus my love began. 
Through the Valley of Love I went. 
In its lovingest spot to abide, 
And just on the verge where I pitched my tent, 
265 



I found Hate dwelling beside. 

{Let the Bridegroom ask what the painter meant, 

Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride /) 

And further, I traversed Hates grove, 

In its hatef idlest nook to dwell ; 

But lo, where I flung myself prone, couched Love 

Where the deepest shadoiv fell. 

{The meaning — those black bride s-eyes above. 

Not the painter s lip should tell /) 

" And here/' said he, ^^ Jules probably will ask, 
" You have black eyes, love, — you are, sure 

enough, 
" My peerless bride, — so do you tell, indeed, 
" What needs some explanation — what means 

this ? " 
— And I am to go on, without a word — 

So I grew wiser in Love and Hate, 
From simple, that I was of late. 
For once, when I loved, I woidd e?dace 
Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form and face 
Of her I loved, in one embrace — 
As if by mere love I could love immensely ! 
And when I hated, I would plunge 
My sword, and tvipe ivith the first lunge 
My foe's whole life out, like a sponge — 
As if by mere hate I could hate iidensely ! 
266 



But now I am wiser, know better the fashion 

How passion seeks aid from its opposite imssion, 

And if I see cause to love more, or hate more 

That ever man loved, ever hated, before — 

And seek in the Valley of Love, 

The spot, or the spot i?i Hate's grove, 

Where my soul may the sureliest ?'each 

The essence, nought less, of each. 

The Hate of all Hates, or the Love 

Of all Loves, in its Valley or Grove, — 

I find them the very warders 

Each of the other s borders. 

I love most, when Love is disguised 

In Hate ; and whe?i Hate is siuprised 

I?i Love, then I hate most : ask 

How Love smiles through Hate's iron casque. 

Hate grins throtigh Love's 7'ose-braided mask, — 

And how, having hated thee, 

I sought long and painfully 

To wound thee, and not piick 

The skin, but pierce to the quick — 

Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight 

By thy bride — how the jmiider Lutwyche can hate ! 

Jules interposes. 

Lutwyche — who else ? But all of them, no doubt. 
Hated me : they at Venice — presently 
267 



Their turn, however ! You I shall not meet : 
If I dreamed, saying this would wake me ! 

Keep 
What's here, this gold — we cannot meet again. 
Consider — and the money was but meant 
For two years' travel, which is over now, 
All chance, or hope, or care, or need of it I 
This — and what comes from selling these, my casts 
And books, and medals, except . . . let them go 
Together, so the produce keeps you safe 
Out of Natalia's clutches ! — If by chance 
(For all's chance here) I should survive the gang 
At Venice, root out all fifteen of them. 
We might meet somewhere, since the world is 
wide — 

[Fro?n without is heard the voice of Pippa, 
sificrins — 

o o 

Give her hut a least excuse to love vie ! 
When — where — 

Hoiv — can this arm establish her above me, 
If fortune ^fixed her as my lady there, 
There already, to eternally reprove me ? 
(^" Hist " — said. Kate the queen ; 
But '' Oh — " cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 
" ' Tis only a page that carols unseen 
" Crumbling your hounds their messes ! ") 
268 



Is she wronged ? — To the rescue of her honour, 

My heart ! 

Is she poor ? — What costs it to he styled a dojiour ? 

Merely an earth's to cleave, a seas to part ! 

Bid that fortune should have thrust all this upon he 

("Nay, list,^' — bade Kate the queen; 

And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 

" ' Tis only a page that carols unseen 

" Fitting your hawks their jesses ! ") 

[PippA passes. 

Jules resumes. 
What name was that the little girl sang forth ? 
Kate ? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced 
The crown of Cyprus to be lady here 
At Asolo, where still the peasants keep 
Her memory ; and songs tell how many a page 
Pined for the grace of one so far above 
His power of doing good to, as a queen — 
"She never could be wronged, be poor," he 

sighed, 
" For him to help her I " 

Yes, a bitter thing 
To see our lady above all need of us ; 
Yet so we look ere we will love ; not I, 
But the world looks so. If whoever loves 
Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper. 
The blessing or the blest one, queen or page, 
269 



Why should we always choose the page's part ? 
Here is a woman with utter need of me, — 
I find myself queen here, it seems ! 

How strange ! 
Look at the M'oman here with the new soul, 
Like my own Psyche's, — fresh upon her lips 
Alit, the visionary butterfly. 
Waiting my word to enter and make bright. 
Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. 
This body had no soul before, but slept 
Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free 
From taint or foul with stain, as outward things 
Fastened their image on its passiveness : 
Now, it will wake, feel, live — or die again ! 
Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff 
Be art — and, further, to evoke a soul 
From form, be nothing ? This new soul is mine ! 

Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that do ? — save 
A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death 
Without me, from their laughter ! — Oh, to hear 
God's voice plain as I heard it first, before 
They broke in with that laughter ! I heard them 
Henceforth, not God ! 

To Ancona — Greece — some isle ! 
I wanted silence only — there is clay 
Everywhere. One may do whate'er one likes 
270 



In Art — the only thing is, to make sure 

Tiiat one does Hke it — which takes pains to know. 

Scatter all this, my Phene — this mad dream ! 
Who — what is Lutwyche — what Natalia's friends, 
What the whole world except our love — my own. 
Own Phene ? But I told you, did I not, 
Ere night we travel for your land — some isle 
With the sea's silence on it ? Stand aside — 
1 do but break these paltry models up 
To begin art afresh. Shall I meet Lutwyche, 
And save him from my statue's meeting him ? 
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas ! 
Like a god going thro' his world there stands 
One mountain for a moment in the dusk, 
W^hole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow — 
And you are ever by me while I gaze 
— Are in my arms as now — as now — as now ! 
Some unsuspected isle in the far seas ! 
Some unsuspected isle in far off seas ! 

Talk by the way, while Pippa is jmssingfrom Orcana 
to the Turret. Two or three of the Austrian 
Police loitering rvith Bluphocks, an English 
vagabond, just in view of the Turret. 

Bluphocks.^ So, that is your Pippa, the little 

^ " He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, 
and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." 
271 



girl who passed us singing ? Well^ your Bishop's 
Intendant's money shall be honestly earned : — 
now, don't make me that sour face because I 
bring the Bishop's name into the business — we 
know he can have nothing to do with such horrors 
— we know that he is a saint and all that a Bishop 
should be, who is a great man besides. Oh ! were 
hut every worm a maggot, Every Jiy a grig, Evety 
bough a Christmas faggot, Eveiy tune a jig ! In 
fact, I have abjured all religions; but the last 1 
inclined to, was the Armenian — for I have 
travelled, do you see, and at Koenigsberg, Prussia 
Improper (so styled because there's a sort of 
bleak hungry sun there), you might remark over 
a venerable house-porch, a certain Chaldee in- 
scription ; and brief as it is, a mere glance at 
it used absolutely to change the mood of every 
bearded passenger. In they turned, one and all ; 
the young and lightsome, with no irreverent 
pause, the aged and decrepit, with a sensible 
alacrity, — 'twas the Grand Rabbi's abode, in short. 
Struck with curiosity, I lost no time in learning 
Syriac — (these are vowels, you dogs, — follow my 
stick's end in the mud — Celarent, Daiii, Ferio !) 
and one morning presented myself spelling-book 
in hand, a, b, c, — I picked it out letter by letter, 
and what was the purport of this miraculous posy ? 
272 



Some cherished legend of the past you'll say — 
" Ho)v Moses hocus-pocust Egypt's land with fly and 
locust,'' — OY, "How to Jonah sounded harshish, Get 
thee up and go to Tarshish," — or, " Hotv the angel 
meeting Balaam, Straight his ass returned a salaam " ; 
— in no wise ! — " Shackahrach — Boach — somebody 
or other — Isaac, Recei-ver, Pur-chaser and Ex- 
chan-ger of Stolen goods!" So talk to me of the 
religion of a bishop ! 1 have renounced all bishops 
save Bishop Beveridge — mean to live so — and die 
— As sotne Greek dog-sage, dead ajid merry, Hellward 
hound in Charon's wherry — With food for both 
worlds, under and uj^per. Lupine-seed and Hecate's 
supper, and never an obolus . . . (Though thanks 
to you, or this Intendant thro' you, or this Bishop 
through his Intendant — I possess a burning 
pocket-full of zwanzigers) . . . To pay the Stygian 
ferry ! 

1st Policeman. There is the girl, then ; go and 
deserve them the moment you have pointed out 
to us Signor Luigi and his mother. (7o the rest) 
I; have been noticing a house yonder, this long 
while — not a shutter unclosed since morning ! 

2nd Policeman. Old Luca Gaddi's, that owns 

the silk-mills here : he dozes by the hour — wakes 

up, sighs deeply, says he should like to be Prince 

Metternich, and then dozes again, after having 

s 273 



bidden young Sebald, the foreigner, set his wife 
to playing draughts : never molest such a house- 
hold, they mean well. 

Bhiphocks. Only, cannot you tell me some- 
thing of this little Pippa, I must have to do with ? 
— one could make something of that name. Pippa 
— that is, short for Felippa — rhyming to — Panurge 
consults Hertrippa — BeUevst thou, King Agrippa ? 
Something might be done with that name. 

2nd Policeman. Put into rhyme that your head 
and a ripe musk-melon would not be dear at half 
a zwansiger ! Leave this fooling, and look out — 
the afternoon's over or nearly so. 

Srcl PoUceman. Where in this passport of Signer 
Luigi does our principal instruct you to watch 
him so narrowly ? There ? what's there beside a 
simple signature ? (That English fool's busy 
watching.) 

2nd Policeman. Flourish all round — " put all 
possible obstacles in his way " ; oblong dot at the 
end — '^'^ Detain him till further advices reach 
you"; scratch at bottom — "send him back on 
pretence of some informality in the above " ; ink- 
spurt on right-hand side, (which is the case here) 
— "Arrest him at once," why and wherefore, I 
don't concern myself, but my instructions amount 
to this : if Signer Luigi leaves home to-night for 
274 



Vienna, well and good — the passport deposed 
with us for our visa is really for his own use, they 
have misinformed the Office, and he means well ; 
but let him stay over to-night — there has been 
the pretence we suspect — the accounts of his 
corresponding and holding intelligence with the 
Carbonari are correct — we arrest him at once — 
to-morrow comes Venice — and presently, Spiel- 
berg. Bluphocks makes the signal sure enough ! 
That is he, entering the turret with his mother, 
no doubt. 

III. — Evening. Inside the Turret. Luigi and his 
Mother entering. 

Mother. If there blew wind, you'd hear a long 
sigh, easing 
The utmost heaviness of music's heart. 
Luigi. Here in the archway ? 
Mother. Oh, no, no— in farther. 

Where the echo is made — on the ridge. 

Luigi. Here surely, then. 

How plain the tap of my heel as I leaped up ! 
Hark — ^'Lucius Junius!" The very ghost of a 

voice. 
Whose body is caught and kept by . . . what are 
those ? 

275 



Mere withered wall-flowers, waving overhead ? 
They seem an elvish group with thin bleached 

hair 
Who lean out of their topmost fortress — looking 
And listening, mountain men, to what we say, 
Hands under chin of each grave earthy face : 
Up and show faces all of you ! — " All of you ! " 
That's the king's dwarf with the scarlet comb ; 

now hark — 
Come down and meet your fate ! Hark — '' Meet 
yow'fate /" 

Mother. Let him not meet it, my Luigi — do not 
Go to his city ! putting crime aside, 
Half of these ills of Italy are feigned — 
Your Pellicos and writers for effect. 
Write for effect. 

Luigi. Hush ! say A. writes, and B. 

Mother. These A.'s and B.'s write for effect, I 
say. 
Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good 
Is silent — you hear each petty injury — 
None of his daily virtues ; he is old. 
Quiet, and kind, and densely stupid — why 
Do A. and B. not kill him themselves ? 

Luigi. They teach 

Others to kill him — me — and, if I fail. 
Others to succeed ; now, if A. tried and failed 
276 



I could not teach that : mme's the lesser task. 
Mother^ they visit night by night . . . 

Mother. — You, Luigi ? 

Ah, will you let me tell you what you are ? 

Luigi. Why not ? Oh, the one thing you fear 
to hint. 
You may assure yourself I say and say 
Ever to myself; at times — nay, even as now 
We sit, I think my mind is touched — suspect 
All is not sound : but is not knowing that. 
What constitutes one sane or otherwise ? 
I know I am thus — so all is right again ; 
I laugh at myself as through the town I walk, 
And see men merry as if no Italy 
Were suffering ; then I ponder — " I am rich, 
" Young, healthy ; why should this fact trouble me, 
" More than it troubles these ? " But it does 

trouble me ! 
No — trouble's a bad word — for as I walk 
There's springing and melody and giddiness. 
And old quaint terms and passages of my youth — 
Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves — 
Return to me — whatever may amuse me. 
And earth seems in a truce with me, and heaven 
Accords with me, all things suspend their strife. 
The very cicalas laugh " There goes he, and there ! 
" Feast him, the time is short — he is on his way 
277 



" For the world's sake — feast him this once^ our 

friend ! " 
And in return for all this, I can trip 
Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps : I go 
This evening, mother ! 

Mother. But mistrust yourself — 

Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him. 

Luigi. Oh, there I feel — am sure that I am 
right ! 

Mother. Mistrust your judgment, then, of the 
mere means 
Of this wild enterprise : say you are right, — 
How should one in your state e'er bring to pass 
What would require a cool head, a cold heart. 
And a calm hand ? You never will escape. 

Luigi. Escape — to even wish that, would spoil 
all ! 
The dying is best part of it. Too much 
Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine. 
To leave myself excuse for longer life — 
Was not life pressed down, running o'er with joy, 
That I might finish with it ere my fellows 
Who, sparelier feasted, make a longer stay ? 
I was put at the board-head, helped to all 
At first ; I rise up happy and content. 
God must be glad one loves His world so much — 
I can give news of earth to all the dead 
278 



Who ask me : — last year's sunsets, and great stars 
That had a right to come first and see ebb 
The crimson wave that drifts the sun away — 
Those crescent moons with notched and burning 

rims 
That strengthened into sharp fire, and there 

stood, 
Impatient of the azure — and that day 
In March, a double rainbow stopped the storm — 
May's warm, slow, yellow moonlit summer 

nights — 
Gone are they, but I have them in my soul ! 
Mother. (He will not go !) 
Luigi. You smile at me ! 

'Tis true. — 
Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness. 
Environ my devotedness as quaintly 
As round about some antique altar wreathe 
The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's skulls. 
Mother. See now : you reach the city — you 

must cross 
His threshold — how f 

Luigi. Oh, that's if we conspired ! 

Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess — 
But guess not how the qualities required 
For such an office — qualities I have — 
Would little stead me otherwise employed, 
279 



Yet prove of rarest merit here — here only. 

Every one knows for what his excellence 

Will serve, but no one ever will consider 

For what his worst defect might serve ; and yet 

Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder 

In search of a distorted ash ? — It happens 

The wry spoilt branch's a natural perfect bow ! 

Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man 

Arriving at the palace on my errand ! 

No, no — I have a handsome dress packed up — 

White satin here, to set off my black hair — 

In I shall march — for you may watch your life 

out 
Behind thick walls — make friends there to betray 

you; 
More than one man spoils everything. March 

straight — 
Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for — 
Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on 
Thro' guards and guards 1 have rehearsed it 

all 
Inside the Turret here a hundred times — 
Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe, 
But where they cluster thickliest is the door 
Of doors ; they'll let you pass — they'll never 

blab 
Each to the other, he knows not the favourite, 
280 



Whence he is bound and what's his business 

now — 
Walk in — straight up to him — you liave no 

knife — 
Be prompt^ how should he scream? Then, out 

with you ! 
Italy, Italy, my Italy ! 
You're free, you're free ! Oh mother, I could 

dream 
They got about me — Andrea from his exile. 
Pier from his dungeon, Gaultier from his grave ! 
Mother. Well, you shall go. Yet seems this 

patriotism 
The easiest virtue for a selfish man 
To acquire ! He loves himself — and next, the 

world — 
If he must love beyond, — but nought between : 
As a short-sighted man sees nought midway 
His body and the sun above. But you 
Are my adored Luigi — ever obedient 
To my least wish, and running o'er with love — 
I could not call you cruel or unkind ! 
Once more, your ground for killing him ! — then 

go! 
Luigi. Now do you ask me, or make sport of 

me ? 
How first the Austrian s got these provinces — 



(If that is aWj I'll satisfy you soon) 

. . . Never by conquest but by cunning, for 

That treaty whereby . . . 

Mother. Well ? 

Luigi. (Sure he's arrived. 

The tell-tale cuckoo — spring's his confidant, 
And he lets out her April purposes !) 
Or . . . better go at once to modern times — 
He has . . . they have ... In fact, I under- 
stand 
But can't re-state the matter ; that's my boast ; 
Others could reason it out to you, and prove 
Things they have made me feel. 

Mother. Why go to-night ? 

Morn's for adventure. Jupiter is now 
A morning-star. I cannot hear you, Luigi ! 

Lidgi. " I am the bright and morning-star," 
God saith — 
And, "to such an one I give the morning-star! " 
The gift of the morning-star — have I God's gift 
Of the morning-star } 

Mother. Chiara will love to see 

That Jupiter an evening-star next June. 

Luigi. True, mother. Well for those who live 
through June ! 
Great noontides, thunder - storms, all glaring 
pomps 

282 



Which triumph at the heels of sovereign June 
Leading his glorious revel thro' our world. 
Yes, Chiara will be here— 

Mother. Ii^ June-remember, 

Yourself appointed that month for her coming— 

Luigi. Was that low noise the echo ? 

Mother. The 

night- wind. 
She must be grown— with her blue eyes upturned 
As if life were one long and sweet surprise : 
In June she comes. 

l^uigi We were to see together 

The Titian at Treviso— there, again ! 

[From ivithout is heard the voice of Pippa, 
singing — 

A king lived long ago, 
In the morning of the world, 
When earth was nigher heaven than now ; 
And the kings locks curled 
Disparting oer a forehead full 
As the milk-whUe space 'twixt horn and horn 
Of some sacrificial bull — 
Onlif calm as a babe new-born : 
For he was got to a sleepy mood, 
So safe from all decrepitude, 
From age with its bane, so sure gone by, 
283 



(The Gods so loved him while he dreamed ,) 
That, having lived thus long, there seemed 
No need the kins: should ever die. 



Luigi. No need that sort of king should ever 



die! 



Among the rocks his city was : 

Befo7'e his palace, in the sun, 

He sate to see his people p>ass. 

And judge them every one 

From its threshold of smooth stone. 

They haled him many a valley-thief 

Caught in the sheep-pens — robber-chief, 

Swarthly and shameless — beggar-cheat — 

Spy-prowler — or rough pirate found 

On the sea-sand left aground ; 

And sometimes clung aboid his feet. 

With bleeding lip and burning cheek, 

A woman, bitterest wrong to speak 

Of one with sullen thickset brows : 

And soineiimes from the prison-house 

The angry priests a jjale 7vretch brought, 

Who through some chink had pushed and 

pressed, 
On knees and elbows, belly and breast, 
Worm-like into the temple, — caught 
At last there by the very God 
284 



fV/w ever in the darkness strode 
Backward and forward, keeping watch 
O'er his hrazen howls, such rogues to catch ! 
And these, all and eveyy one, 
The king judged, sitting in the sun. 

Luigi. That king should still judge sitting in 
the sun ! 

His councillois, on left and right, 
Looked anxious up, — hut no surprise 
Disturbed the kings old smiling eyes. 
Where the very blue had turned to jvhite. 
'Tis said a Python scared one day 
The breathless city, till he came, 
Withforky tongue and eyes on flame. 
Where the old king sate to judge alway ; 
But when he saw the sweepy hair. 
Girt with a crown of berries rare 
Which the God will hardly give to wear 
To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare 
In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights, 
At his wondrous forest rites, — 
Beholding this, he did not dare. 
Approach that threshold in the sun, 
Assault the old king smiling there. 
Such crrace had kin^s when the world besun ! 

[PippA passes. 



Liiigi. And such grace have they, now that 
the world ends ! 
The Python in the city, on the throne, 
And brave men, God would crown for slaying him. 
Lurk in bye-corners lest they fall his prey. 
Are crowns yet to be won, in this late trial. 
Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach ? 
'Tis God's voice calls, how could I stay? 
Farewell ! 

Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from the 
Turret to the Bishop's brother s House, close to 
the Duomo S. Maria. Poor Girls sitting on the 
steps. 

1st. Girl. There goes a swallow to Venice — 
the stout sea-farer ! 
Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings. 
Let us all wish ; you, wish first ! 

2nd Girl. I ? This sunset 

To finish. 

3rd Girl. That old . . . somebody I know. 
Greyer and older than my grandfather. 
To give me the same treat he gave last week — 
Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers. 
Lampreys, and red Breganze-wine, and mumbling 
The while some folly about how well I fare, 
286 



To be let eat my supper quietly — 
Since had he not himself been late this morning 
Detained at — never mind where, — had he not . . . 
" Eh, baggage, had I not ! " — 

^nd Girl, How she can lie ! 

Srd Girl. Look there — by the nails — 

2«c? Girl. What makes your fingers red ? 

Srd Girl. Dipping them into wine to write bad 
words with, 
On the bright table — how he laughed ! 

1*/ Girl. My turn : 

Spring's come and summer's coming : I would 

wear 
A long loose gown — down to the feet and hands — 
With plaits here, close about the throat, all day : 
And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed — 
And have new milk to drink — apples to eat, 
Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats . . . ah, 

I should say, 
This is away in the fields — miles ! 

3rd Girl. Say at once 

You'd be at home — she'd always be at home ! 
Now comes the stoiy of the farm among 
The cherry orchards, and how April snowed 
White blossoms on her as she ran : why, fool, 
They've rubbed the chalk-mark out, how tall 
you were, 

287 



Twisted your starling's neck, broken his cage. 
Made a dunghill of your garden — 

1*/ Girl. They, destroy 

My garden since I left them ? well — perhaps ! 
I would have done so — so I hope they have ! 
A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall — 
They called it mine, I have forgotten why, 
It must have been there long ere I was born ; 
Cric — eric — I think I hear the wasps o'erhead 
Pricking the papers strung to flutter there 
And keep off birds in fruit-time — coarse long 

papers. 
And the wasps eat them, prick them through and 

through. 
3rd Girl. How her mouth twitches ! Where 

was I ? — before 
She broke in with her wishes and long gowns 
And wasps — would I be such a fool ! — Oh, here ! 
This is my way — I answer every one 
Who asks me why I make so much of him — 
(If you say, you love him — straight " he'll not be 

gulled ") 
''He that seduced me when I was a girl 
Thus high — had eyes like yours, or hair like 

yours. 
Brown, red, white," — as the case may be — that 

pleases ! 



(See how that beetle burnishes in the path — 
There sparkles he along the dust ! and, there — 
Your journey to that maize-tuft's spoilt at least !) 
1*^ Girl. When I was young, they said if you 
killed one 
Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend 
Up there, would shine no more that day nor next. 
2nd Girl. When you were young ? Nor are you 
young, that's true ! 
How your plump arms, that were, have dropped 

away ! 
Why, I can span them ! Cecco beats you still ? 
No matter, so you keep your curious hair. 
I wish they'd find a way to dye our hair 
Your colour — any lighter lint, indeed. 
Than black — the men say they are sick of 

black, 
Black eyes, black hair ! 

4<ih Girl. Sick of yours, like enough ! 

Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreys 
And ortolans ? Giovita, of the palace, 
Engaged (but there's no trusting him) to slice 

me 
Polenta with a knife that has cut up 
An ortolan. 

2nd Girl. Why, there ! is not that, Pippa 
We are to talk to, under the window, — quick, — 
T 280 



Where the lights are ? 

1*^ Girl. No — or she would sing ; 

— For the Intendant said . . . 

Srcl Girl. Oh^ you sing first — 

Then, if she listens and comes close . . . I'll tell 

you, 
Sing that song the young English noble made, 
Who took you for the purest of the pure. 
And meant to leave the world for you — what 
fun I 

2)id Girl. [Sings.] 

You'll love me yet ! — and I can tarry 
Your love's protracted growing : 
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry 
From seeds of April's sowing. 

I plant a heartfull now — some seed 
At least is sure to strike 
And yield — what you'll not pluck indeed, 
Not love, but, may be, like ! 

You'll look at least on love's remains, 
A grave's one violet : 
Your look? — that pays a thousand pains. 
What's death ? — You'll love me yet I 

3rd Girl. [To Pippa ?vho approaches.] Oh, you 
may come closer — we shall not eat you ! Why, 
you seem the very person that the great rich 
290 



handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in 
love vv^ith ! I'll tell you all about it. 

IV. — Night. The Palace by the Duomo. Monsignor, 
dismissing his Attendants. 

Monsignor. Thanks^ friends, many thanks. I 
chiefly desire life now^ that I may recompense 
every one of you. Most I know something of 
already. What, a repast prepared ? Benedido 
henedicatur . . . ugh . . . ugh ! Where was I } 
Oh^ as you were remarking, Ugo, the wxather is 
mild, very unlike winter-weather, — but I am a 
Sicilian, you know, and shiver in your Julys here : 
To be sure, when 'twas full summer at Messina, 
as we priests used to cross in procession the great 
square on Assumption Day, you might see our 
thickest yellow tapers twist suddenly in two, 
each like a falling star, or sink down on them- 
selves in a gore of wax. But go, my friends, but 
go! [7o //«e Intendant.] Not you, Ugo ! [The 
others leave the apartment.'] I have long wanted to 
converse with you, Ugo I 

Iidendant. Uguccio — 

Monsignor. . . . 'guccio Stefani, man ! of Ascoli, 
Fermo, and Fossombruno ; — what I do need in- 
structing about, are these accounts of your ad 
ministration of my poor brother's affairs. Ugh ! 
291 



I shall never get through a third part of your 
accounts : take some of these dainties before we 
attempt it^ however : are you bashful to that 
degree ? For me, a crust and water suffice. 

Intendcmt. Do you choose this especial night 
to question me ? 

Monsignor. This night, Ugo. You have 
managed my late brother's affairs since the death 
of our elder brother — fourteen years and a month, 
all but three days. On the 3rd of December, 
I find him ... 

Intendcmt. If you have so intimate an acquaint- 
ance with your brother's affairs, you will be 
tender of turning so far back — they will hardly 
bear looking into, so far back. 

Monsignor. Ay, ay, ugh, ugh, — nothing but 
disappointments here below ! I remark a con- 
siderable payment made to yourself on this 
3rd of December. Talk of disappointments ! 
There was a young fellow here, Jules, a foreign 
sculptor, I did my utmost to advance, that the 
church might be a gainer by us both : he was 
going on hopefully enough, and of a sudden he 
notifies to me some marvellous change that has 
happened in his notions of art : here's his letter, — 
"He never had a clearly conceived Ideal within 
his brain till to-day. Yet since his hand could 
292 



manage a chisel, he has practised expressing 
other men's Ideals — and, in the very perfection 
he has attained to, he foresees an ultimate failure 
— his unconscious hand will pursue its prescribed 
course of old years, and will reproduce with a 
fatal expertness the ancient types, let the novel 
one appear never so palpably to his spirit : there 
is but one method of escape — ^confiding the virgin 
type to as chaste a hand, he will turn painter 
instead of sculptor, and paint, not carve, its 
characteristics," — strike out, I dare say, a school 
like Correggio : how think you, Ugo ? 
Intendant. Is Correggio a painter ? 
Monsignor. Foolish Jules ! and yet, after all, 
why foolish? He may — probably will, fail 
egregiously; but if there should arise a new 
painter, will it not be in some such way by a 
poet, now, or a musician, (spirits who have con- 
ceived and perfected an Ideal through some other 
channel) transferring it to this, and escaping our 
conventional roads by pure ignorance of them ; 
eh, Ugo ? If you have no appetite, talk at least, 
Ugo! 

Intendant. Sir, I can submit no longer to this 

course of yours: first, you select the group of 

which I formed one, — next you thin it gradually, 

— always retaining me with your smile, — and so 

293 



do you proceed till you have fairly got me alone 
with you between four stone walls : and now 
then ? Let this farce, this chatter end now — 
what is it you want with me ? 

Mo?isignor. Ugo . . . 

Intendant. From the instant you arrived, I felt 
your smile on me as you questioned me about 
this and the other article in those papers — why 
your brother should have given me this villa, that 
podere, — and your nod at the end meant, — what ? 

Monsignor. Possibly that I wished for no loud 
talk here : if once you set me coughing, Ugo ! — 

Intendant. I have your brother's hand and seal 
to all I possess : now ask me what for ! what 
service I did him — ask me ! 

Monsignor. I had better not — I should rip up 
old disgraces — let out my poor brother's weak- 
nesses. By the way, Maffeo of Forli, (which, I 
forgot to observe, is your true name) was the 
interdict ever taken off you, for robbing that 
church at Cesena ? 

Intendant. No, nor needs be — for when I 
murdered your brother's friend, Pasquale, for 
him . . . 

Monsignor. Ah, he employed you in that 
business, did he ? Well, I must let you keep, as 
you say, this villa and that podere, for fear the 
294 



world should find out my relations were of so 
indifferent a stamp I Maffeo, my family is the 
oldest in Messina^ and century after century have 
my progenitors gone on polluting themselves 
with every wickedness under Heaven : my own 
father . . . rest his soul ! — I have^ I know, a 
chapel to support that it may rest : my dear two 
dead brothers were, — what you know tolerably 
well ; I, the youngest, might have rivalled them 
in vice, if not in w^ealth, but from my boyhood 
I came out from among them, and so am not 
partaker of their plagues. My glory springs 
from another source ; or if from this, by contrast 
only, — for I, the bishop, am the brother of your 
employers, Ugo. I hope to repair some of their 
wrong, however ; so far as my brother's ill-gotten 
treasure reverts to me, I can stop the con- 
sequences of his crime ; and not one soldo shall 
escape me. Maffeo, the sword we quiet men 
spurn away, you shrewd knaves pick up and 
commit murders with ; what opportunities the 
virtuous forgo, the villainous seize. Because, to 
pleasure myself, apart from other considerations, 
my food would be millet-cake, my dress sackcloth, 
and my couch straw, — am I therefore to let you, 
the off-scouring of the earth, seduce the poor and 
ignorant, by appropriating a pomp these will be 
295 



sure to think lessens the abominations so un- 
accountably and exclusively associated with it ? 
Must I let villas and j^oderes go to you, a murderer 
and thief, that you may beget by means of them 
other murderers and thieves ? No ... if my 
cough would but allow me to speak ! 

Intendant. What am I to expect? You are 
going to punish me ? 

Monsignor. Must punish you, MafFeo. I cannot 
afford to cast away a chance. I have whole 
centuries of sin to redeem, and only a month or 
two of life to do it in ! How should I dare to 
say . . . 

Intendant. " Forgive us our trespasses" — 

Monsignor. My friend, it is because I avow 
myself a very worm, sinful beyond measure, that 
I reject a line of conduct you would applaud, 
perhaps : shall I proceed, as it were, a-pardoning ? 
— I } — who have no symptom of reason to assume 
that aught less than my strenuousest efforts will 
keep myself out of mortal sin, much less, keep 
others out. No — I do trespass, but will not 
double that by allowing you to trespass. 

Iute7idant. An& suppose the villas are not your 
brother's to give, nor yours to take } Oh, you 
are hasty enough just now ! 

Monsignor. 1, 2 — No. 3 ! — ay, can you read the 
296 



substance of a letter, No. 3, I have received from 
Rome ? It is precisely on the ground there 
mentioned, of the suspicion I have that a certain 
child of my late elder brother, who would have 
succeeded to his estates, was murdered in infancy 
by you, Maffeo, at the instigation of my late 
brother — that the Pontiff enjoins on me not 
merely the bringing that Maffeo to condign 
punishment, but the taking all pains, as guardian 
of that infant's heritage for the Church, to re- 
cover it parcel by parcel, howsoever, whensoever, 
and wheresoever. While you are now gnawing 
those fingers, the police are engaged in sealing 
up your papers, Maffeo, and the mere raising my 
voice brings my people from the next room to 
dispose of yourself. But I want you to confess 
quietly, and save me raising my voice. Why, 
man, do I not know the old story .^ The heir 
between the succeeding heir, and that heir's 
ruffianly instrument, and their complot's effect, 
and the life of fear and bribes, and ominous 
smiling silence ? Did you throttle or stab my 
brother's infant ? Come, now ! 

Intendant. So old a story, and tell it no better ? 

When did such an instrument ever produce such 

an effect } Either the child smiles in his face, 

or, most likely, he is not fool enough to put 

297 



himself in the employer's power so thoroughly — 
the child is always ready to produce — as you 
say — howsoever, wheresoever, and whensoever. 



Monsignor. Liar ! 



Intendant. Strike me ? Ah_, so might a father 
chastise ! 1 shall sleep soundly to-night at least, 
though the gallows await me to-morrow ; for 
what a life did I lead ! Carlo of Cesena reminds 
me of his connivance, every time I pay his annuity 
(which happens commonly thrice a year). If I 
remonstrate, he will confess all to the good bishop 
—you! 

Monsignor. I see thro' the trick, caitiff! I 
would you spoke truth for once ; all shall be 
sifted, however — seven times sifted. 

Intendant. And how my absurd riches encum- 
bered me ! I dared not lay claim to above half 
my possessions. Let me but once unbosom 
myself, glorify Heaven, and die ! 

Sir, you are no brutal, dastardly idiot like your 
brother I frightened to death — let us understand 
one another. Sir, I will make away with her 
for you — the girl — here close at hand ; not the 
stupid obvious kind of killing ; do not speak — 
know nothing of her or me ! I see her every day 
— saw her this morning : of course there is to be 
no killing ; but at Rome the courtesans perish off 
2q8 



every three years, and I can entice her thither — 
have, indeed, begun operations ah'eady. There's 
a certain lusty, blue-eyed, florid-complexioned, 
English knave I and the police employ occasion- 
ally. — You assent, I perceive — no, that's not it — 
assent I do not say — but you will let me convert 
my present havings and holdings into cash, and 
give me time to cross the Alps ? 'Tis but a 
little black-eyed, pretty singing Felippa, gay 
silk-winding girl. I have kept her out of harm's 
way up to this present ; for I always intended to 
make your life a plague to you with her ! 'Tis 
as well settled once and for ever : some women I 
have procured will pass Bluphocks, my handsome 
scoundrel, off for somebody ; and once Pippa 
entangled ! — you conceive ? Through her singing? 
Is it a bargain ? 

\_From without is heard the voice of Pippa, 
sinorins^ — 

Over-head the tree-tops meet — 
Flofvers and grass spring 'neath one s feet — 
There was nought above me, and nought below, 
My childhood had not learned to know ! 
For, what are the voices of birds 
— Ay, and of beasts, — bid words — our words. 
Only so much more sweet ? 
299 



The knojvledge of that with my life begun ! 

But I had so near made oid the sun, 

And counted your stars, the Seven and One, 

Like the fingers of my hand : 

Nay, I could all but understand 

Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges ; 

And just when out of her soft fifty changes 

No unfamiliar face might overlook me — 

Suddenly God took me ! 

[PippA passes. 

Monsignor. [Springing up.^ My people — one 
and all — all — within there ! Gag this villain — 
tie him hand and foot ! He dares — I know not 
half he dares — but remove him — quick ! Miserere 
mei, Dojnine ! Quick, I say ! 

Pippa's Chamber again. She enters it. 

The bee with his comb. 

The mouse at her dray, 

The grub in its tomb. 

Wile winter away ; 

But the fire-fly and hedge-shrew and lob-worm, I 

pi-ay. 
How fare they ? 

Ha, ha, best thanks for your counsel, m}'^ Zanze — 
" Feast upon lampreys, quaff the Breganze " — 
300 



The summer of life's so easy to spend, 

And care for to-morrow so soon put away ! 

But winter hastens at summer's end, 

And fire-fly, hedge-shrew, lob-worm, pi'^^y, 

How fare they ? 

No bidding me then to . . . what did she say ? 

" Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet 

shoes 
•' More like . . . (what said she ?) — and less like 

canoes — " 
How pert that girl was ! — would I be those pert 
Impudent staring women ! it had done me, 
However, surely no such mighty hurt 
To learn his name who passed that jest upon me : 
No foreigner, that I can recollect, 
Came, as she says, a month since, to inspect 
Our silk-mills — none with blue eyes and thick 

rings 
Of English-coloured hair, at all events. 
Well — if old Luca keep his good intents, 
We shall do better : see what next year brings ! 
I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear 
More destitute than you, perhaps, next year ! 
Bluph . . . something! I had caught the uncouth 

name 
But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter 
Above us — bound to spoil such idle chatter 
301 



As ours ; it were, indeed, a serious matter 
If silly talk like ours should put to shame 
The pious man, the man devoid of blame, 
The . . . ah, but — ah, but, all the same, 
No mere mortal has a right 
To carry that exalted air ; 
Best people are not angels quite — 
While — not the worst of people's doings scare 
The devils ; so there's that proud look to spare ! 
Which is mere counsel to myself, mind ! for 
I have just been the holy Monsignor ! 
And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother, 
And you too, Luigi ! — how that Luigi started 
Out of the Turret — doubtlessly departed 
On some good errand or another. 
For he past just now in a traveller's trim. 
And the sullen company that prowled 
About his path, I noticed, scowled 
As if they had lost a prey in him. 
And I was Jules the sculptor's bride, 
And I was Ottima beside. 
And now what am I ? — tired of fooling ! 
Day for folly, night for schooling ! 
New year's day is over and spent, 
111 or well, I must be content ! 
Even my lily's asleep, I vow : 
Wake up — here's a friend I've pluckt you ! 
302 



See — call this flower a heart's-ease now ! 
And something rare, let me instruct you, 
Is this — with petals triply swollen, 
Three times spotted, thrice the pollen. 
While the leaves and parts that witness 
The old proportions and their fitness 
Here remain, unchanged, unmoved now — 
So call this pampered thing improved now I 
Suppose there's a king of the flowers 
And a girl-show held in his bowers — 
"Look ye, buds, this growth of ours," 
Says he, " Zanze from the Brenta, 
I have made her gorge polenta 
Till both cheeks are near as bouncing 
As her . . . name there's no pronouncing ! 
See this heightened colour too — 
For she swilled Breganze wine 
Till her nose turned deep carmine — 
'Twas but white when wild she grew ! 
And only by this Zanze's eyes 
Of which we could not change the size. 
The magnitude of what's achieved 
Otherwise, may be perceived ! " 
Oh what a drear, dark close to my poor day ! 
How could that red sun drop in that black cloud ! 
Ah, Pippa, morning's rule is moved away. 
Dispensed with, never more to be allowed, 
503 



Day's turn is over — now arrives the night's — 

Oh, Lark, be day's apostle 

To mavis, merle and throstle, 

Bid them their betters jostle 

From day and its delights ! 

But at night, brother Howlet, far over the 

woods, 
Toll the world to thy chantry — 
Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods 
Full complines with gallantry — 
Then, owls and bats, cowls and twats. 
Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods, 
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry ! 

[After she has begun to undress herself. 
Now, one thing I should like really to know : 
How near I ever might approach all these 
I only fancied being, this long day — 
— Approach, I mean, so as to touch them — so 
As to . . . in some way . . . move them — if you 

please. 
Do good or evil to them some slight way. 
For instance, if I wind 
Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind 

[Sitting on the bedside. 
And broider Ottima's cloak's hem — 
Ah, me and my important part with them. 
This morning's hymn half promised when I rose ! 
304 



True in some sense or other, I suppose, 
Though I passed by them all, and felt no sign. 

[As she lies down. 
God bless me ! I can pray no more to-night. 
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right. 

All service is the same with God — 

With God, whose jJ^jpets, best and worst, 

Are we : there is no last norjlrst. — 

[She sleeps. 

Robert Browning. 



U Zos 



BOOK VII 
THE BOOK OF MEMORY 



307 



My Lost Youth ^c^ <:> ^3> xi:> . 

OFTEN I think of the beautiful town 
That is seated by the sea ; 
Often in thought go up and down 
The pleasant streets of that dear old town^ 
And my youth comes back to me. 
And a verse of a Lapland song 
Is haunting my memory still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

1 can see the shadowy lines of its trees. 

And catch, in sudden gleams. 
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas. 
And islands that were the Hesperides 
Of all my boyish dreams. 

And the burden of that old song, 
309 



It murmurs and whispers still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the black wharves and the slips, 

And the sea-tides tossing free ; 
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips. 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships. 
And the magic of the sea. 

And the voice of that wayward song 
Is singing and saying still ; 
^^ A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the bulwarks by the shore. 

And the fort upon the hill ; 
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar. 
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er. 
And the bugle wild and shrill. 
And the music of that old song 
Throbs in my memory still : 
'^^ A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

310 



I remember the sea-fight far away. 
How it thundered o'er the tide ! 
And the dead captains, as they lay 
In their graves o'erlooking the tranquil bay, 
Where they in battle died. 

And the sound of that mournful song 
Goes through me with a thrill : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 



'&* 



I can see the breezy dome of groves, 
The shadows of Deering's Woods ; 
And the friendships old and the early loves 
Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves 
In quiet neighbourhoods. 

And the verse of that sweet old song, 
It flutters and inurmurs still : 
"A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart 

Across the schoolboy's brain ; 
The song and the silence in the heart. 
That in part are prophecies, and in part 

Are longings wild and vain. 

And the voice of that fitful song 



Sings on^ and is never still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

There are things of which I may not speak ; 

There are dreams that cannot die ; 
There are thoughts that make the strong heart 

weak, 
And bring a pallor into the cheek, 
And a mist before the eye. 

And the words of that fatal song 
Come over me like a chill : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

Strange to me now are the forms I meet 

When I visit the dear old town ; 
But the native air is pure and sweet. 
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known 
street. 
As they balance up and down. 
Are singing the beautiful song, 
Are sighing and whispering still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

312 



And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair^ 

And with joy that is almost pain 

My heart goes back to wander there, 

And among the dreams of the days that were, 

I find my lost youth again, 

And the strange and beautiful song, 

The groves are repeating it still : 

"A boy's will is the wind's will. 

And the thoughts of youth are long, long 

thoughts." 

Longfellow. 



There was a Boy ^^^ ^o ^c^ ^c^ ^c?^ 

THERE was a boy ; ye knew him well, ye cliffs 
And islands of Winander ! many a time. 
At evening, when the earliest stars began 
To move along the edges of the hills, 
Rising or setting, would he stand alone. 
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake ; 
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands 
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth 
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument. 
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls. 
That they might answer him. — And they would 
shout 



Across the watery vale, and shout again, 

Responsive to his call, — with quivering peals, 

And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud 

Redoubled and redoubled ; concourse wild 

Of mirth and jocund din ! And, when it chanced 

That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill. 

Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung 

Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise 

Has carried far into his heart the voice 

Of mountain torrents ; or the visible scene 

Would enter unawares into his mind 

With all its solemn imagery, its rocks. 

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received 

Into the bosom of the steady lake. 

This boy was taken from his mates, and died 
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old. 
Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale 
Where he was born : the grassy churchyard 

hangs 
Upon a slope above the village school ; 
And through that churchyard when my way has 

led 
At evening, I believe that oftentimes 
A long half-hour together I have stood 
Mute — looking at the grave in which he lies ! 

Wordsworth. 

314 



BREAK, break, break, 
On thy cold grey stones, O Sea ! 
And I woukl that my tongue coukl utter 
The thoughts that arise in me. 

O well for the fisherman's boy, 

That he shouts with his sister at play I 

O well for the sailor lad. 

That he sings in his boat on the bay ! 

And the stately ships go on 
To their haven under the hill ; 

But O for the touch of a vanished hand 
And the sound of a voice that is still ! 

Break, break, break, 

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea ! 
But the tender grace of a day that is dead 

Will never come back to me. 

Tennyson. 

Three Years She Grew .^ ,<s> <o ,i^ 

THREE years she grew in sun and shower 
Then nature said, '' A lovelier flower 
On earth was never sown ; 
This child I to myself will take ; 
She shall be mine, and I will make 
A lady of my own. 

315 



^^ Myself will to my darling be 

Both law and impulse : and with me 

The girlj, in rock and plain. 

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower. 

Shall feel an overseeing power 

To kindle or restrain. 

" She shall be sportive as the fawn 
That wild with glee across the lawn 
Or up the mountain springs ; 
And hers shall be the breathing balm, 
And hers the silence and the calm 
Of mute insensate things. 

^' The floating clouds their state shall lend 

To her ; for her the willow bend : 

Nor shall she fail to see 

Even in the motions of the storm 

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 

By silent sympathy. 

" The stars of midnight shall be dear 
To her ; and she shall lean her ear 
In many a secret place 

Where rivulets dance their wayward round. 
And beauty born of murmuring sound 
Shall pass into her face. 
316 



" And vital feelings of delight 

Shall rear her form to stately height. 

Her virgin bosom swell ; 

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give 

While she and I together live 

Here in this happy dell." 

Thus nature spake — the work was done — 

How soon my Lucy's race was run ! 

She died, and left to me 

This heath, this calm and quiet scene ; 

The memory of what has been, 

And never more will be. 

Wordsworth. 



WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent 
thought 
I summon up remembrance of things past, 
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
And with old woes now wail my dear time's 

waste : 
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow. 
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night. 
And weep afresh love's long-since cancell'd woe, 
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight : 
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
317 



The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
Which I new pay as if not paid before. 

But if the' while I think on thee, dear friend, 
All losses are restored and sorrow^s end. 

Shakespeare. 



Surprised by Joy o <?^ -c^ ^c?^ <y^ 

SURPRISED by joy, impatient as the wind, 
I turned to share the transport — Oh ! with 
whom 
But thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, 
That spot which no vicissitude can find ! 
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind — 
But how could I forget thee.^ — Through what 

power. 
Even for the least division of an hour. 
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind 
To my most grievous loss? — That thought's 

return 
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore. 
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn. 
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more : 
That neither present time, nor years unborn 
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. 

W^ORDSWORTH. 

318 



A Song <o -^ <s> e> <s> ^:> 

TEARSj idle tears, I know not what they 
mean, 
Tears from the depth of some divine despair 
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, 
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, 
And thinking of the days that are no more. 

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, 
That brings our friends up from the underworld. 
Sad as the last which reddens over one 
That sinks with all we love below the verge ; 
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 

The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds 

To dying ears, when unto dying eyes 

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; 

So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 

Dear as remember'd kisses after death. 
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd 
On lips that are for others ; deep as love. 
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; 
O Death in Life, the days that are no more. 

Tennyson. 
3^9 



Rose Aylmer -o ^i:^ ^:> <:?- 

AW, what avails the sceptred race^ 
Ah^ what the form divme ! 
What every virtue, every grace, 
Rose Ayhner, all were thine. 

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes 

May weep, but never see, 

A night of memories and sighs 

I consecrate to thee. 

Landor. 

Ye Banks and Braes ^o o^ ^^ 

YE banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, 
How can ye blume sae fair ! 
How can ye chant, ye little birds. 
And I sae fu' o' care ! 

Thou' It break my heart, thou bonnie bird 

That sings upon the bough. 
Thou minds me o' the happy days 

When my fause Luve was true. 

Thou' It break my heart, thou bonnie bird 
That sings beside thy mate ; 

For sae I sat, and sae I sang, 
And wist na' o' my fate. 
320 



Aft hae I roved by boiinie Doon 

To see the woodbine twine, 
And ilka bird sang o' its luve ; 

And sae did I o' mine. 

Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose, 

Frae afF its thorny tree ; 
And my fause lover staw the rose. 

But left the thorn wi' me. 

Burns. 



Night-thoughts o ^z!^ ^o ^c- ^o>- 

WHEN on my bed the moonlight falls, 
I know that in thy place of rest 
By that broad water of the west. 
There comes a glory on the walls : 

Thy marble bright in dark appears. 
As slowly steals a silver flame 
Along the letters of thy name, 

And o'er the number of thy years. 

The mystic glory swims away ; 

From off my bed the moonlight dies ; 

And closing eaves of wearied eyes 
I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray : 
X 321 



And then I know the mist is drawn 
A lucid veil from coast to coast, 
And in the dark chm-ch like a ghost 

Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. 

Tennyson. 



Echo .<£> <:?- Mi> ^iP" yi> <:> 

COME to me in the silence of the night ; 
Come in the speaking silence of a dream ; 
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as 
bright 
As sunlight on a stream ; 
Come back in tears^ 
O memory, hope, love of finished years. 

Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet. 
Whose wakening should have been in 
Paradise, 
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet ; 
Where thirsting longing eyes 
Watch the slow door 
That opening, letting in, lets out no more. 

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live 
My very life again though cold in death : 
322 



Come back to me in dreams, that I may give 
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath : 
Speak low, lean low. 
As long ago, my love, how long ago ! 

Christina Rossetti. 



San Lorenzo Giustiniani's Mother ^t* -c^ 

"And we the shadows of the dream." — Shelley. 

I HAD not seen my son's dear face 
(He chose the cloister by God's grace) 
Since it had come to full flower-time. 
I hardly guessed at its perfect prime, 
That folded flower of his dear face. 

Mine eyes were veiled by mists of tears 

When on a day in many years 

One of his Order came. I thrilled. 
Facing, I thought, that face fulfilled. 

I doubted, for my mists of tears. 

His blessing be with me for ever ! 

My hope and doubt were hard to sever. 

— That altered face, those holy weeds. 

I filled his wallet and kissed his beads, 
And lost his echoing feet for ever. 
323 



If to my son my alms were given 
I know not, and I wait for Heaven. 

He did not plead for child of mine, 

But for another Child divine. 
And unto Him it was surely given. 

There is One alone who cannot change ; 
Dreams are we, shadows, visions strange ; 

And all I give is given to One. 

I might mistake my dearest son. 
But never the Son who cannot change. 

Alice Meynell. 



In Memoriam 



BE near me when my light is low. 
When the blood creeps, and the nerves 
prick 
And tingle ; and the heart is sick, 
And all the wheels of Being slow. 

Be near me when the sensuous frame 

Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust ; 
And Time, a maniac scattering dust. 

And Life, a Fury slinging flame. 
324 



Be near me when my faith is dry, 

And men the flies of latter spring, 
That lay their eggs, and sting and sing 

And weave their petty cells and die. 

Be near me when I fade away. 

To point the term of human strife. 
And on the low dark verge of life 

The twilight of eternal day. 



Do we indeed desire the dead 

Should still be near us at our side ? 
Is there no baseness we would hide ? 

No inner vileness that we dread ? 

Shall he for whose applause I strove, 
I had such reverence for his blame, 
See with clear eye some hidden shame 

And I be lessen'd in his love ? 

I wrong the grave with fears untrue : 

Shall love be blamed for want of faith ? 
There must be wisdom with great Death 

The dead shall look me thro' and thro'. 
325 



Be near us when we climb or fall : 

Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
With larger other eyes than ours, 

To make allowance for us all. 



III. 

When rosy plumelets tuft the larch. 

And rarely pipes the mounted thrush ; 
Or underneath the barren bush 

Flits by the sea-blue bird of March ; 

Come, wear the form by which I know 
Thy spirit in time among thy peers ; 
The hope of unaccomplish'd years 

Be large and lucid round thy brow. 

When summer's hourly-mellowing change 
May breathe, with many roses sweet. 
Upon the thousand waves of wheat. 

That ripple round the lonely grange ; 

Come : not in watches of the night. 

But where the sunbeam broodeth warm, 
Come, beauteous in thine after form. 

And like a finer light in light. 
326 



1 shall not see thee. Dare I say 
No spirit ever brake the band 
That stays him from the native land 

Where first he walk'd when claspt in clay ? 

No visual shade of some one lost, 

But he, the Spirit himself, may come 
Where all the nerve of sense is numb ; 

Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. 

O, therefore from thy sightless range 
With gods in unconjectured bliss, 
O, from the distance of the abyss 

Of tenfold-complicated change. 

Descend, and touch, and enter ; hear 

The wish too strong for words to name ; 
That in this blindness of the frame 

My Ghost may feel that thine is near. 



By night we linger'd on the lawn. 
For underfoot the herb was dry ; 
And genial warmth ; and o'er the sky 

The silvery haze of summer drawn ; 

327 



And calm that let the tapers burn 

Unwavering : not a cricket chirr'd . 
The brook alone far-off was heard, 

And on the board the fluttering urn : 

And bats went round in fragrant skies, 
4nd wheel'd or lit the filmy shapes 
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes 

And woolly breasts and beaded eyes ; 

While now we sang old songs that peal'd 

From knoll to knoll, where, couch'd at ease. 
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 

Laid their dark arms about the field. 

But when those others, one by one. 

Withdrew themselves from me and night. 
And in the house light after light 

Went out, and I was all alone, 

A hunger seized my heart ; I read 

Of that glad year which once had been. 

In those fall'n leaves which kept their green. 

The noble letters of the dead : 

And strangely on the silence broke 

The silent-speaking words, and strange 
Was love's dumb cry defying change 

To test his worth ; and strangely spoke 
328 



The faith, the vigour, bold to dwell 

On doubts that drive the coward back, 
And keen thro' wordy snares to track 

Suggestion to her inmost cell. 

So word by word, and line by line, 

The dead man touch'd me from the past. 
And all at once it seem'd at last 

The living soul was flash'd on mine. 

And mine in this was wound, and whirl'd 
About empyreal heights of thought. 
And came on that which is, and caught 

The deep pulsations of the world, 

iEonian music measuring out 

The steps of Time — the shocks of Chance — 
The blows of Death. At length my trance 

Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt. 

Vague words ! but ah, how hard to frame 
In matter-moulded forms of speech. 
Or ev'n for intellect to reach 

Thro' memory that which I became : 

Till now the doubtful dusk reveal'd 

The knolls once more where, couch'd at ease. 
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 

Laid their dark arms about the field : 
329 



And suck'd from out the distant gloom 
A breeze began to tremble o'er 
The large leaves of the sycamore. 

And fluctuate all the still perfume. 

And gathering freshlier overhead, 

Rock'd the fuU-foliaged elms, and swung 
The heavy-folded rose, and flung 

The lilies to and fro, and said 

"The dawn, the dawn," and died away ; 
And East and West, without a breath, 
Mixt their dim lights, like life and death. 

To broaden into boundless day. 

Tennyson. 



330 



BOOK VIII 
STEPPING WESTWARD 



331 



Stepping Westward <s^ o^ <:> ,i::> 

[While my fellow-traveller and I were walking by the side 
of Loch Katrine, one fine evening after sunset, in our road 
to a hut where, in the course of our tour, we had been 
hospitably entertained some weeks before, we met, in one 
of the loneliest parts of that solitary region, two well-dressed 
women, one of whom said to us, by way of greeting, " What ! 
you are stepping westward ? "] 

'' T /T 7" HAT ! you are stepjmig westward?" 

1/1/ —''Yea" 
'Twould be a ivildish destiny. 
If we, who thus together roam 
In a strange land, and far from home. 
Were in this place the guests of chance : 
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance. 
Though home or shelter he had none. 
With such a sky to lead him on ? 

The dewy ground was dark and cold ; 
Behind, all gloomy to behold ; 
Z2>2> 



And stepping westward seemed to be 
A kind of heavenly destiny ; 
I liked the greeting ; 'twas a sound 
Of something without place or bound ; 
And seemed to give me spiritual right 
To travel through that region bright. 

The voice was soft, and she who spake 

Was walking by her native lake : 

The salutation had to me 

The very sound of courtesy : 

Its power was felt ; and while my eye 

Was fixed upon the glowing sky. 

The echo of the voice inwrought 

A human sweetness with the thought 

Of travelling through the world that lay 

Before me in my endless way. 

Wordsworth. 



Friends in Paradise <::> <p- .^^ vi> 

THEY are all gone into the world of light I 
And I alone sit lingering here ; 
Their very memory is fair and bright, 
And my sad thoughts doth clear : — 
334 



It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast, 
Like stars upon some gloomy grove. 

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest 
After the sun's remove. 

I see them walking in an air of glory, 

Whose light doth trample on my days : 

My days, which are at best but dull and hoary. 
Mere glimmering and decays. 

O holy Hope ! and high Humility, 

High as the heavens above ! 
These are your walks, and you have shewed them 
me. 

To kindle my cold love. 

Dear beauteous Death ! the Jewel of the Just, 
Shining nowhere but in the dark ; 

What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust. 
Could man outlook that mark ! 

He that hath found some fledged bird's nest, may 
know 

At first sight if the bird be flown ; 
But what fair dell or grove he sings in now. 

That is to him unknown. 

335 



And yetj as Angels in some brighter dreams 
Call to the soul^ when man doth sleep ; 
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted 
themes, 
And into glory peep. 

H. Vaughan. 



The Hound of Heaven ^c?' <:?^ o .o 

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the 
days ; 
I fled Him, down the arches of the years ; 
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways 

Of my own mind ; and in the mist of tears 
I hid from Him, and under running laughter. 
Up vistaed hopes I sped ; 
And shot, precipitated 
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears. 

From those strong Feet that followed, followed 
after. 

But with unhurrying chase. 
And unperturbed pace. 
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, 
They beat — and a Voice beat 
More instant than the Feet — 
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me." 
336 



I pleaded, outlaw-wise, 
By many a hearted casement, curtained red, 

Trellised with intertwining charities ; 
(For, though I knew His love Who followed. 

Yet was I sore adread 
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside) 
But, if one little casement parted wide. 

The gust of His approach would clash it to. 
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue. 
Across the margent of the world I fled. 

And troubled the gold gateways of the stars. 
Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars ; 
Fretted to dulcet jars 
And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon, 
I said to dawn : Be sudden — to eve : Be soon ; 
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over 
From this tremendous Lover ! 
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see ! 

I tempted all His servitors, but to find 
My own betrayal in their constancy, 
In faith to Him their fickleness to me. 

Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. 
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue ; 
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. 
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet. 
The long savannahs of the blue ; 

Or whether, Thunder-driven, 
Y 337 



They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven, 
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' 
their feet : — 
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. 
Still with unhurrying chase, 
And unperturbed pace, 
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, 
Came on the following Feet, 
And a Voice above their beat — 
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not 
shelter Me." 

I sought no more that after which I strayed 

In face of man or maid ; 
But still within the little children's eyes 

Seems something, something that replies, 
Theij at least are for me, surely for me ! 
I turned me to them very wistfully ; 
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair 

With dawning answer there. 
Their angel plucked them from me by the 

hair. 
" Come then, ye other children, Nature's — share 
With me " (said I) "your delicate fellowship ; 

Let me greet you lip to lip, 

Let me twine with you caresses. 
W^an toning 

338 



With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses. 
Banqueting 
With her in her wind-walled palace, 
Underneath her azured dais 
Quaffing, as your taintless way is. 
From a chalice 
Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring." 

So it was done : 
/ in their delicate fellowship was one — 
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies. 
I knew all the swift importings 
On the wilful face of skies ; 
I knew how the clouds arise 
Spumed of the wild sea-snortings ; 

All that's born or dies 
Rose and drooped with— made them shapers 
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine— 
With them joyed and was bereaven. 
I was heavy with the even. 
When she lit her glimmering tapers 
Round the day's dead sanctities. 
I laughed in the morning's eves. 
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather. 

Heaven and I wept together. 
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine ; 
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart 
I laid my own to beat, 
339 



And share commingling heat ; 
But not by that, by that, was eased my human 

smart. 
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek. 
For ah ! we know not what each other says, 
These things and I ; in sound / speak — 
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by 

silences. 
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth ; 

Let her, if she would owe me, 
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me 

The breasts o' her tenderness : 
Never did any milk of hers once bless 
My thirsting mouth. 
Nigh and nigh draws the chase. 
With unperturbed pace. 
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy. 
And past those noised Feet 
A Voice comes yet more fleet — 
" Lo ! naught contents thee, who content' st 
not Me." 

Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke ! 
My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, 
And smitten me to my knee ; 
I am defencless utterly, 
I slept, methinks, and woke, 
340 



Andj slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. 
In the rash lustihead of my young powers, 

I shook the pillaring hours, 
And pulled my life upon me ; grimed with 

smears, 
I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years — 
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap, 
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke. 
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream. 

Yea, faileth now even dream 
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist ; 
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist 
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist. 
Are yielding ; cords of all too weak account 
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed. 

Ah ! is Thy love indeed 
A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed, 
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount ? 

Ah ! must — 

Designer infinite ! — 
Ah ! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst 

limn with it ? 
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the 

dust ; 
And now my heart is as a broken fount. 
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever 

From the dank thoughts that shiver 
341 



Upon the sighful branches of my mind. 

Such is ; what is to be ? 
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind ? 
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds ; 
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds 
From the hid battlements of Eternity, 
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then 
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash 
again ; 
But not ere him who summoneth 
I first have seen, enwound 
With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned ; 
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. 
Whether man's heart or life it be which yields 
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields 
Be dunged with rotten death ? 
Now of that long pursuit 
Comes on at hand the bruit ! 
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea : 
" And is thy earth so marred, 
Shattered in shard on shard ? 
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me 

" Strange, piteous, futile thing ! 
Wherefore should any set thee love apart ? 
Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He 
said), 

342 



" And human love needs human meriting : 

How hast thou merited — 
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot ? 

Alack, thou knowest not 
How little worthy of any love thou art ! 
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee. 

Save Me, save only Me ? 
All which I took from thee I did but take, 

Not for thy harms. 
But just that thou might' st seek it in My arms. 

All which thy child's mistake 
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home : 

Rise, clasp My hand, and come." 

Halts by me that footfall : 

Is my gloom, after all, 
Shade of His hand, oustretched caressingly ? 

" Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, 

I am He Whom thou seekest ! 

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest 

Me." 

Francis Thompson. 

(• 

THY voice is on the rolling air ; 
I hear thee where the waters run ; 
Thou standest in the rising sun. 
And in the setting thou art fair. 
343 



What art thou then ? I cannot guess ; 
But tho' I seem in star and flower 
To feel thee some diffusive power, 

I do not therefore love thee less : 

My love involves the love before ; 

My love is vaster passion now ; 

Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou, 
I seem to love thee more and more. 

Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; 

I have thee still, and I rejoice ; 

1 prosper, circled with thy voice ; 
I shall not lose thee tho' I die. 

Tennyson. 

Up-hill <:><::?> ,i> ,i:> ^^ yC> 

DOES the road wind up-hill all the way ? 
Yes, to the very end. 
Will the day's journey take the whole long day ? 
From morn to night, my friend. 

But is there for the night a resting-place ? 

A roof for when the slow dark hours begin. 
May not the darkness hide it from my face ? 

You cannot miss that inn. 
344 



Shall I meet other wayfarers at night ? 

Those who have gone before. 
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight ? 

They will not keep you standing at that door. 

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak ? 

Of labour you shall find the sum. 
Will there be beds for me and all who seek ? 

Yea, beds for all who come. 

Christina Rossetti. 



Requiescat ^^ <s> <^ -^ -^r^ 

STREW on her roses, roses. 
And never a spray of yew ! 
In quiet she reposes ; 

Ah ! would that I did too ! 

Her mirth the world required ; 

She bath'd it in smiles of glee. 
But her heart was tired, tired. 

And now they let her be. 

Her life w^as turning, turning, 
In mazes of heat and sound. 

But for peace her soul was yearning. 

And now peace laps her round. 

345 



Her cabin'd, ample spirit, 

It fliitter'd and fail'd for breath. 

To-night it doth inherit 
The vasty hall of death. 

Matthew Arnold. 



Fidele 



FEAR no more the heat o' the sun 
Nor the furious winter's rages ; 
Thou thy worldly task hast done, 

Home art gone and ta'en thy w^ages : 
Golden lads and girls all must, 
As chimney-sw^eepers, come to dust. 

Fear no more the frown o' the great. 
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke ; 

Care no more to clothe and eat ; 
To thee the reed is as the oak : 

The sceptre, learning, physic, must 

All follow this, and come to dust. 

Fear no more the lightning-flash 

Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone ; 
Fear not slander, censure rash ; 

Thou hast finished joy and moan : 
All lovers young, all lovers must 
Consign to thee, and come to dust. 

Shakespeare. 
346 



A Grave ^o >c^ ^^:?^ ^o^ -o •'O^ 

THERE^ through the long, long summer 
hours^ 

The golden light should lie, 
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers 

Stand in their beauty by. 
The oriole should build and tell 
His love-tale, close beside my cell ; 

The idle butterfly 
Should rest him there, and there be heard 
The housewife-bee and humming bird. 

And what, if cheerful shouts at noon, 

Come^ from the village sent. 
Or songs of maids, beneath the moon, 

With fairy laughter blent ? 
And what if, in the evening light, 
Betrothed lovers walk in sight 

Of my low monument ? 
I would the lovely scene around 
Might know no sadder sight nor sound. 

I know, I know I should not see 

The season's glorious show ; 
Nor would its brightness shine for me. 

Nor its wild music flow ; 
347 



But if, around my place of sleep, 

The friends I love should come to weep, 

They might not haste to go. 
Soft airs and song, and light and bloom, 
Should keep them lingering by my tomb. 

These to their soften'd hearts should bear 
The thought of what has been. 

And speak of one who cannot share 
The gladness of the scene ; 

Whose part in all the pomp that fills 

The circuit of the summer hills. 

Is that his grave is green ; 

And deeply would their hearts rejoice 

To hear again his living voice. 

Bryant. 

The Scholar-Gipsy ,^ ^>* .^ ^:> ^> 

" There was very lately a lad in the University of Oxford, 
who was by his poverty forced to leave his studies there, and 
at last to join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies. 
Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating subtilty 
of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and 
esteem as that they discovered to him their mystery. After 
he had been a pretty while exercised in the trade, there 
chanced to ride by a couple of scholars, who had formerly 
been of his acquaintance. They quickly spied out their old 
friend among the gipsies ; and he gave them an account of 
the necessity which drove him to that kind of life, and told 



them that the people he went with were not such impostors 
as they were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind 
of learning among them, and could do wonders by the 
power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others : 
that himself had learned much of their art, and when he had 
compassed the whole secret, he intended, he said, to leave 
their company, and give the world an account of what he 
had learned."— Glanvil's Va?iily of Dogmatising, 1661. 

GO, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill ; 
Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes ! 
No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, 
Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats. 
Nor the cropped herbage shoot another head. 
But when the fields are still. 
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest, 
And only the white sheep are sometimes seen 
Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanched 
green. 
Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest ! 

Here, where the reaper was at work of late— 
In this high field's dark corner, where he 
leaves 
His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse. 
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves. 
Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to 
use — 
Here will I sit and wait, 
349 



While to my ear from uplands far away 
The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, 
With distant cries of reapers in the corn — 
All the live murmur of a summer's day, 

Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reaped 
field, 
And here till sun-down, shepherd ! will I be. 
Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies 
peep. 
And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see 
Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep ; 
And air-swept lindens yield 
Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed 
showers 
Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid, 
And bower me from the August sun with 
shade ; 
And the eye travels down to Oxford's 
towers. 

And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book — 
Come, let me read the oft-read tale again ! 

The story of the Oxford scholar poor. 
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain. 
Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door. 
One summer morn forsook 

350 



His friends, and went to learn the gipsy lore, 
And roamed the world with that wild brother- 
hood 
And came, as most men deemed, to little 
good. 
But came to Oxford and his friends no 
more. 

But once, years after, in the country lanes, 
Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew. 

Met him, and of his way of life inquired ; 
Whereat he answered, that the gipsy crew. 
His mates, had arts to rule as they desired 
The workings of men's brains. 
And they can bind them to what thoughts they 
will, 
'^And [," he said, "the secret of their art, 
When fully learned, will to the world impart : 
But it needs heaven-sent moments for this 
skill." 

This said, he left them, and returned no more. — 
But rumours hung about the country side, 

That the lost scholar long was seen to stray. 
Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue tied. 
In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, 
The same the gipsies wore. 

351 



Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring ; 
At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors. 
On the warm ingle bench, the smock-frocked 
boors 
Had found him seated at their entering, 

But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly. 
And I myself seem half to know thy looks. 
And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy 
trace ; 
And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks 
I ask if thou hast passed their quiet place ; 
Or in my boat I lie 
Moored to the cool bank in the summer heats, 
'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine 

fills. 
And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner 
Hills, 
And wonder if thou haunt' st their shy 
retreats. 

For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground. 
Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, 

Returning home on summer nights, have met 
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, 
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 
x\s the punt's rope chops round ; 
352 



And leaning backward in a pensive dream, 
And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers 
Plucked in shy fields and distant Wychwood 
bowers, 
And thine eyes resting on the moonlit 
stream. 

And then they land, and thou art seen no more ! — 
Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come 

To dance around the Fy field elm in May, 
Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee 
roam. 
Or cross a stile into the public way. 
Oft thou hast given them store 
Of flowers — the frail-leaf 'd, white anemone, 
Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of summer 

eves, 
And purple orchises with spotted leaves — 
But none hath words she can report of thee. 

And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here 
InjJune, and many a scythe in sunshine flames. 
Men who through those wide fields of breezy 
grass 
Where black-winged swallows haunt the glitter- 
ing Thames, 
To bathe in the abandon'd lasher pass. 
Have often passed thee near 
z 353 



Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown ; 

Marked thy outlandish garb, thy figure spare, 
Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air — 
But, when they came from bathing, thou 
wast gone. 

At some lone homestead in the Cumner Hills, 
Where at her open door the housewife darns, 
Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate 
To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. 
Children, who early range these slopes and 
late 
For cresses from the rills. 
Have known thee eyeing, all an April day, 
The springing pastures and the feeding kine ; 
And marked thee, when the stars come out 
and shine 
Through the long dewy grass move slow 
away. 

In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley wood — 

Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way 
Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush 
you see 
With scarlet patches tagged and shreds of grey, 
Above the forest ground called Thessaly — 
The blackbird, picking food 
354 



Sees theCj nor stops his meal, nor fears at all ; 
So often has he known thee past him stray 
Rapt, twirling in thy hand a withered spray, 
And waiting for the spark from heaven to 
fall. 

And once, in winter, on the causeway chill 

Where home through flooded fields foot - 
travellers go. 
Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge 
Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, 
Thy face tow'rd Hinksey and its wintry 
ridge ? 
And thou hast climbed the hill. 
And gained the white brow of the Cumner 

range ; 
Turned once to watch, while thick the snow- 
flakes fall. 
The line of festal light in Christ-Church 
hall- 
Then sought thy straw in some sequestered 
grange. 

But what — I dream ! Two hundred years are 
flown 
Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls. 
And the grave Glanvil did. the tale inscribe 
355 



That thou wert wander' d from the studious walls 

To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy tribe ; 

And thou from earth art gone 

Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid ; 

Some countiy nook, where o'er thy unknown 

grave 
Tall grasses and white flowering nettles 
wave — 
Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade. 

No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours ! 
For what wears out the life of mortal men ? 
'Tis that from change to change their being 
rolls ; 
'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, 
Exhaust the energy of strongest souls 
And numb the elastic powers. 
Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen. 
And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit. 
To the just-pausing Genius we remit 

Our worn-out life, and are — what we have 
been. 

Thou hast not lived, why should'st thou perish so ? 
Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire ; 
Else wert thou long since numbered with the 
dead ! 

356 



Else hadst thou spent^ like other men, thy fire ! 
The generations of thy peers are fled, 
And we ourselves shall go ; 
But thou possessest an immortal lot, 
And we imagine thee exempt from age 
And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page, 
Because thou hadst — what we, alas ! have 
not! 

For early didst thou leave the world, with powers 
Fresh, undiverted to the world without. 

Firm to their mark, not spent on other 
things ; 
Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt. 
Which much to have tried, in much been 
baffled, brings. 
O life unlike to ours ! 
Who fluctuate idly without term or scope. 
Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he 

strives. 
And each half lives a hundred different lives ; 
Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in 
hope. 

Thou waitest for the spark from heaven ! and we. 
Light half-believers of our casual creeds, 
Who never deeply felt, nor clearly willed, 
357 



Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, 
Whose vague resolves never have been 
fulfilled ; 
For whom each year we see 
Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new ; 
Who hesitate and falter life away, 
And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day — 
Ah ! do not we, wanderer ! await it too ? 

Yes, we await it ! — but it still delays, 

And then we suffer ! and amongst us one, 
Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly 
His seat upon the intellectual throne ; 
And all his store of sad experience he 
Lays bare of wretched days ; 
Tell us his misery's birth and growth and signs, 
And how the dying spark of hope was fed. 
Add how the breast was soothed, and how 
the head. 
And all his hourly varied anodynes. 

This for our wisest ! and we others pine. 

And wish the long unhappy dream would end. 
And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear ; 
With close-lipped patience for our only friend. 
Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair — 
But none has hope like thine. 

358 



Thou through the fields and through the woods 
dost stray, 
Roaming the country side^ a truant boy^ 
Nursing thy project in unclouded joy^ 

And every doubt long blown by time 
away. 

O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, 
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames ; 
Before this strange disease of modern life, 
With its sick hurry, its divided aims. 

Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was 
rife — 
Fly hence, our contact fear ! 
Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood ! 
Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern 
From her false friend's approach in Hades 
turn. 
Wave us away, and keep thy solitude ! 

Still nursing the unconquerable hope. 
Still clutching the inviolable shade, 

W^ith a free, onward impulse brushing through. 
By night, the silver'd branches of the glade — 
Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue. 
On some mild pastoral slope 
359 



Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales 
Freshen thy flowers as in former years 
With dew, or listen with enchanted ears, 
From the dark dingles, to the nightingales. 

But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly ! 
For strong the infection of our mental strife, 
Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for 
rest ; 
And we should win thee from thine own fair life. 
Like us distracted, and like us unblest. 
Soon, soon thy cheer would die, 
Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy 
powers. 
And thy clear aims be cross and shifting 

made ; 
And then thy glad perennial youth would 
fade. 
Fade, and grow old at last, and die like 
ours. 

Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles ! 
— As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea. 

Descried at sunrise an emerging prow 
Lifting the cool- hair' d creepers stealthily. 
The fringes of a southward-facing brow 
Among the ^gean isles ; 
360 



And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, 
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, 
Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in 
brine — 
And knew the intruders on his ancient 
home, 

The young light-hearted masters of the waves — 
And snatched his rudder, and shook out more 
sail ; 
And day and night held on indignantly 
O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale. 
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, 
To where the Atlantic raves 
Outside the western straits ; and unbent sails 
There, where down cloudy cliffs, through 

sheets of foam. 
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come ; 
And on the beach undid his corded bales. 
Matthew Arnold. 

Remember -o <^ -o -c^ ^c^ ^y^ 

REMEMBER me when I am gone away. 
Gone far away into the silent land ; 
When you can no more hold me by the hand. 
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. 
361 



Remember me when no more day by day 

You tell me of our future that you planned : 
Only remember me ; you understand 

It will be late to counsel then or pray. 

Yet if you should forget me for a while 

And afterwards remember, do not grieve : 
For if the darkness and corruption leave 
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, 

Better by far you should forget and smile 

Than that you should remember and be sad. 
Christina Rossetti. 



Elegy 



WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 



TH E curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea. 
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 

Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight, 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds. 

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds : 
362 



Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower 
The moping owl does to the moon complain 

Of such as, wand'ring near her secret bower, 
Molest her ancient solitary reign. 

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring 
heap. 

Each in his narrow cell for ever laid. 

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 

The swallow twittering from the straw-built 
shed. 

The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
Or busy housewife ply her evening care ; 

No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield. 

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke 
How jocund did they drive their team afield ! 
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy 
stroke ! 

363 



Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 

Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
The short and simple annals of the poor. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 

Await alike th' inevitable hour : 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault. 
If mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise. 

Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted 
vault 
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 

Can storied urn, or animated bust. 

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
Can honour's voice provoke the silent dust, 

Or flatt'ry soothe the dull cold ear of death ? 

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; 
Hands that the rod of empire might have 
swayed. 
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre : 
364 



But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, 
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ; 

Chill penury repressed their noble rage, 
And froze the genial current of the soul. 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene 

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

Some village Hampden that, with dauntless 
breast, 

The little tyrant of his fields withstood. 
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, 

Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood. 

Th' applause of listening senates to command. 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise, 

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land. 

And read their history in a nation's eyes. 

Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone 

Their growing virtues, but their crimes con- 
fined ; 
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne, 
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ; 
365 



The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide^ 
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, 

Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride 
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. 

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, 
Their sober wishes never learned to stray ; 

Along the cool sequestered vale of life 

They kept the noiseless tenour of their way. 

Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect, 
Some frail memorial still erected nigh. 

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture 
decked. 
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh. 

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unlettered 
Muse, 

The place of fame and elegy supply ; 
And many a holy text around she strews, 

That teach the rustic moralist to die. 

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, 
This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned, 

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day. 
Nor cast one longing ling'ring look behind ? 
366 



On some fond breast the parting soul relies. 
Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; 

Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, 
Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires. 

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonoured dead. 
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate, 

If chance by lonely contemplation led. 

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, — 

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 
" Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn 

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away. 
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. 

" There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 

His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
And pore upon the brook that babbles by. 

" Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, 
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove ; 

Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn. 

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. 

" One morn I missed him on th' accustomed hill, 
Along the heath and near his favourite tree ; 

Another came ; nor yet beside the rill. 

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he : 

367 



" The next, with dirges due in sad array. 

Slow through the church-way path we saw 
him borne, — 
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the 
lay 
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." 

THE EPITAPH. 1 

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth 
A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown : 

Fair science frowned not on his humble birth. 
And melancholy marked him for her own. 

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere ; 

Heaven did a recompense as largely send : 
He gave to misery (all he had) a tear, 

He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) 
a friend. 

^ "Before the Epitaph, Gray originally inserted a very 
beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first 
editions, but afterwards omitted, because he thought that 
it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines 
however, in themselves demand preservation : 

"'There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, 

By hands unseen, are showers of violets found ; 
The redbreast loves to build and warble there. 
And little footsteps lightly print the ground.'" 
368 



No farther seek his merits to disclose. 

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode 

(There they alike in trembling hope repose)^, 
The bosom of his Father and his God. 

Gray. 



Ode to Heaven <:> ^^ <:> <c> 

CHORUS OF SPIRITS. 

Firat Spirit, 

PALACE-ROOF of cloudless nights ! 
Paradise of golden lights ! 
Deep, immeasurable, vast, 
Which art now, and which wert then ! 

Of the Present and the Past, 
Of the eternal Where and When, 
Presence-chamber, temple, home. 
Ever-canopying dome. 
Of acts and ages yet to come ! 

Glorious shapes have life in thee. 
Earth, and all earth's company ; 

Living globes which ever throng 
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses ; 

And green w^orlds that glide along ; 

2 A 369 



And swift stars with flashing tresses ; 
And icy moons most cold and bright. 
And mighty suns beyond the night, 
Atoms of intensest hght. 

Even thy name is as a god. 
Heaven ! for thou art the abode 

Of that Power which is the glass 
Wherein man his nature sees. 
Generations as they pass 
Worship thee with bended knees. 

Their unremaining gods and they 

Like a river roll away : 

Thou remainest such — alway ! — 



Second Sjnrit. 

Thou art but the mind's first chamber, 

Round which its young fancies clamber. 
Like weak insects in a cave. 

Lighted uj) by stalactites ; 
But the portal of the grave. 

Where a world of new delights 
Will make thy best glories seem 
But a dim and noonday gleam 
From the shadow of a dream ! 
370 



Third Spirit. 

Peace ! the abyss is wreathed with scorn 
At your presumption, atom-born ! 

What is Heaven ? and what are ye 
Who its brief expanse inherit ? 

What are suns and spheres which flee 
With the instinct of that Spirit 

Of which ye are but a part ? 

Drops which Nature's mighty heart 

Drives through thinnest veins ! Depart ! 

What is Heaven ? a globe of dew, 

FilHng in the morning new 

Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken 

On an unimagined world ; 
Constellated suns unshaken. 

Orbits measureless, are furled 
In that frail and fading sphere, 
With ten millions gathered there 
To tremble, gleam, and disappear. 

Shelley. 



A Vision 



1 



SAW Eternity the other night 
Like a great ring of pure and endless light. 
All calm, as it was bright : — 

371 



And round beneath it. Time, in hours, days, 
years, 
Driven by the spheres. 
Like a vast shadow moved ; in which the world 
And all her train were hurled. 

H. Vaughan. 



Xight 



THE sun descending in the West, 
The evening star does shine ; 
The birds are silent in their nest. 
And I must seek for mine. 
The moon, like a flower 
In heaven's high bower, 
With silent delight, 
Sits and smiles on the night. 

Farewell, green fields and happy groves. 
Where flocks have took delight. 
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves 
The feet of angels bright ; 

Unseen, they pour blessing, 

And joy without ceasing. 

On each bud and blossom, 

And each sleeping bosom. 
372 



They look in every thoughtless nest 
Where birds are covered warm ; 
They visit caves of every beast, 
To keep them all from harm : 
If they see any weeping 
That should have been sleeping, 
They pour sleep on their head, 
And sit down by their bed. 

When wolves and tigers howl for prey, 
They pitying stand and weep ; 
Seeking to drive their thirst away. 
And keep them from the sheep. 

But, if they rush dreadful. 

The angels, most heedful. 

Receive each mild spirit, 

New worlds to inherit. 

And there the lion's ruddy eyes 
Shall flow with tears of gold : 
And pitying the tender cries. 
And walking round the fold : 

Saying : " Wrath by His meekness. 

And, by His health, sickness. 

Is driven away 

From our immortal day. 
373 



" And now beside thee^ bleating lamb^ 
I can lie down and sleep, 
Or think on Him who bore thy name, 
Graze after thee, and weep. 

For, washed in life's river. 

My bright mane for ever 

Shall shine like the gold. 



As I guard o'er the fold. 



Blakk 



At Niffht ^ 



HOME, home from the horizon far and clear. 
Hither the soft wings sweep ; 
Flocks of the memories of the day draw near 
The dovecote doors of sleep. 

O which are they that come through sweetest 
light 
Of all these homing birds ? 
Which with the straightest and the swiftest 
flight ? 
Your words to me, your words ! 

Alice Mevnell. 
374 



In Praise of Death e> >i:> ^t^ s: 

PRAISED be the fathomless universe 
For life and joy and for love, sweet love 
But praise ! praise ! praise ! 
For the cool enfolding arms 
Of sweet and delicate death. 

Walt Whitman. 



Prospice ^,0- -^z;^ ^c?- ^c^ ^o^ <:?^ 

FEAR death } — to feel the fog in my throat, 
The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote, 

I am n earing the place, 
The power of the night, the press of the storm. 

The post of the foe ; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form. 

Yet the strong man must go : 
For the journey is done and the summit attained, 

And the barriers fall, 
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be 
gained. 
The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, 
The best and the last ! 
375 



1 would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and 
forbore, 
And bade me creep past. 
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my 
peers 
The heroes of old, 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness and cold. 
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 

The black minute's at end. 
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 

Shall dwindle, shall blend. 
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of 
pain, 
Then a light, then thy breast, 
O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again. 
And with God be the rest ! 

Robert Browning. 



Last Lines -^y- o <:^ ^o ^o ^o 

NO coward soul is mine. 
No trembler in the world's storm- 
troubled sphere : 
I see Heaven's glories shine. 
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear. 
376 



O God within my breast^ 
Almighty, ever-present Deity ! 

Life — that in me has rest, 
As I — undying Life — have power in Thee ! 



Vain are the thousand creeds 
That move men's hearts : unutterably vain ; 

Worthless as withered weeds, 
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main. 



To waken doubt in one 
Holding so fast by Thine infinity ; 

So surely anchored on 
The steadfast rock of immortality. 



With wide-embracing love 
Thy spirit animates eternal years. 

Pervades and broods above. 
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears. 

Though earth and man were gone. 
And suns and universes ceased to be. 

And Thou wert left alone. 
Every existence would exist in Thee. 
377 



There is not room for Death, 
Nor atom that his might could render void : 

Thou, Thou art Being and Breath, 
And wliat Thou art can never be destroyed. 

Emily Bronte. 



378 



BOOK IX 
THE ETERNAL SPRING 



379 



Ode to the West Wind 



OWILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's 
being, 
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red. 
Pestilence-stricken multitudes : O thou. 
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low. 
Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
With living hues and odours plain and hill : 
38T 



Wild Spirit, w hich art moving everywhere ; 
Destroyer and preserver ; hear, oh, hear ! 



Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's 

commotion. 
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, 
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and 

Ocean, 

Angela of rain and lightning : there are spread 
On the blue surface of thine aery surge. 
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge 

Of the horizon to the zenith's height. 

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 

Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 
Vaulted with all thy congregated might 

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst : oh, hear ! 



Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay. 
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, 
382 



Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 

For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear. 
And tremble and despoil themselves : oh, hear ! 



IV. 

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; 

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ; 

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 

The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
Than thou, O uncontrollable ! If even 
I were as in my boyhood, and could be 

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, 
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 
Scarce seemed a vision ; I would ne'er have striven 
383 



As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 
I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! 

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 
One too like thee : tameless, and swift, and proud. 



V. 

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 
What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, 
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou. Spirit fierce. 
My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe 
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ! 
And, by the incantation of this verse. 

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! 
Be through my lips to unawakened earth 

The trumpet of a prophecy ! O, Wind, 
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ? 

Shelley, 
384 



Ode 



INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS 
OF EARLY CHILDHOOD. 

"The child is father of the man; 
And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety." 

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, 
and stream, 
The earth, and every common sight. 
To me did seem 
Apparelled in celestial light. 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
It is not now as it hath been of yore ; — 
Turn wheresoe'er I may. 
By night or day. 
The things which I have seen I now can see no 
more. 



The rainbow comes and goes. 
And lovely is the rose ; 
The moon doth with delight 
Look round her when the heavens are bare ; 
Waters on a starry night 
Are beautiful and fair ; 

2 B 385 



The sunshine is a glorious birth ; 
But yet I know^ where'er I go, 
That there hath passed away a glory from the 
earth. 

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, 
And while the young lambs bound 
As to the tabor's sound. 
To me alone there came a thought of grief: 
A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 

And I again am strong : 
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep, 
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong ; 
I hear the echoes through the mountains throng. 
The winds come to me from the fields of sleep. 
And all the earth is gay ; 
Land and sea 
Give themselves up to jollity, 
And with the heart of May 
Doth every beast keep holiday ; — 
Thou child of joy. 
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou 
happy shepherd boy ! 

Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call 

Ye to each other make ; I see 
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee ; — 
386 



1 



My heart is at your festival^ 
My head hath its coronal^ 
The fuhiess of your bHss, I feel — I feel it all. 
Oh evil day ! if I were sullen 
While the earth itself is adorning, 

This sweet May-morning, 
And the children are pulling, 

On every side, 
In a thousand valleys far and wide, 
Fresh flowers, while the sun shines warm. 
And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm : — 
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear ! 
But there's a tree, of many, one, 
A single field which I have looked upon. 
Both of them speak of something that is gone : 
The pansy at my feet 
Doth the same tale repeat : 
Whither is fled the visionary gleam ? 
Where is it now, the glory and the dream ? 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 

The soul that rises with us, our life's star. 

Hath had elsewhere its setting. 

And Cometh from afar : 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness. 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
387 



From God, who is our home : 
Heaven lies about us in our infancy I 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing boy, 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy ; 
The youth, who daily farther from the east 

Must travel, still is nature's priest. 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended ; 
At length the man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day. 

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ; 
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind. 
And, even with something of a mother's mind. 

And no unworthy aim, 

The homely nurse doth all she can 
To make her foster-child, her inmate man. 

Forget the glories he hath known. 
And that imperial palace whence he came. 

Behold the child among his new-born blisses, 
A six-years' darling of a pigmy size ! 
See where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, 
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses. 
With light upon him from his father's eyes ! 
388 



See, at his feet, some little plan or chart. 
Some fragment from his dream of human life, 
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art ; 

A wedding or a festival^ 

A mourning or a funeral ; 

And this hath now his heart, 

And unto this he frames his song : 
Then will he fit his tongue 
To dialogues of business, love, or strife ; 

But it will not be long 

Ere this be thrown aside. 

And with new joy and pride 
The little actor cons another part ; 
Filling from time to time his " humorous stage 
With all the persons, down to palsied age. 
That life brings with her in her equipage ; 

As if his whole vocation 

Were endless imitation. 

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 

Thy soul's immensity ; 
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep 
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind. 
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, 
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind, — 

Mighty prophet ! seer blest ! 

On whom those truths do rest, 
389 



Which we are toiHng all our lives to find, 
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ; 
Thou, over whom thy immortality 
Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, 
A presence which is not to be put by ; 
Thou little child, yet glorious in the might 
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height. 
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 
The years to bring the inevitable yoke. 
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife ? 
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight. 
And custom lie upon thee with a weight. 
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life ! 

O joy ! that in our embers 

Is something that doth live. 

That nature yet remembers 

What was so fugitive ! 
The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benediction : not indeed 
For that which is most worthy to be blest ; 
Delight and liberty, the simple creed 
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest. 
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his 
breast : 

Not for these I raise 

The song of thanks and praise ; 
390 



But for those obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 
Fallings from us, vanishings ; 
Blank misgivings of a creature 
Moving about in worlds not realised ; 
High instincts before which our mortal nature 
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised : 
But for those first affections. 
Those shadowy recollections, 
Which, be they what they may. 
Are yet the fountain light of all our day. 
Are yet a master light of all our seeing ; 

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
Of the eternal silence : truths that wake 

To perish never ; 
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, 

Nor man nor boy, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
Can utterly abolish or destroy ! 

Hence, in a season of calm weather. 
Though inland far we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 
Which brought us hither. 

Can in a moment travel thither. 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 
391 



Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song ! 
And let the young lambs bound 
As to the tabor's sound ! 

We in thought will join your throng, 
Ye that pipe and ye that play. 
Ye that through your hearts to-day 
Feel the gladness of the May ! 

What though the radiance which was once so 
bright 

Be now for ever taken from my sight, 
Though nothing can bring back the hour 

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower ; 
We will grieve not, rather find 
Strength in what remains behind ; 
In the primal sympathy 
Which having been must ever be. 
In the soothing thoughts that spring 
Out of human suffering, 
In the faith that looks through death. 

In years that bring the philosophic mind. 

And O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves. 
Think not of any severing of our loves ! 
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might : 
I only have relinquished one delight 
To live beneath your more habitual sway. 
I love the brooks which down their channels fret 
392 



PLven more than when I tripped hghtly as they ; 
The innocent brightness of a new-born clay 

Is lovely yet ; 
The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Do take a sober colouring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality ; 
Another race hath been^ and other palms are won. 
Thanks to the human heart by which we live. 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, 
To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 

Wordsworth. 

Labour and Love ^p' <:> <s> -i> -^ 

LABOUR and love ! there are no other laws 
To rule the liberal action of that soul 
Which faith hath set beneath thy brief control, 
Or lull the empty fear that racks and gnaws ; 

Labour ! then like a rising moon, the cause 

Of life shall light thine hour from pole to pole, 
Thou shalt taste health of purpose, and the roll 

Of simple joys unwind without a pause. 

Love ! and thy heart shall cease to question why 
Its beating pulse was set to rock and rave ; 
Find but another heart this side the grave 
393 



To soothe and cling to, — thou hast life's reply. 
Labour and love ! then fade without a sigh, 
Submerged beneath the inexorable wave. 

Edmund Gosse. 



" An Angel of the Night " ^> ^^ <r> 

I DREAMED there would be Spring no more. 
That Nature's ancient power was lost ; 
The streets were black with smoke and frost, 
They chattered trifles at the door : 

I wandered from the noisy town, 

1 found a wood with thorny boughs : 
I took the thorns to bind my brows, 

I wore them like a civic crown : 

I met with scoffs, I met with scorns 

From youth and babe and hoary hairs : 
They called me in the public squares 

The fool that wears a crown of thorns : 

They called me fool, they called me child : 

I found an angel of the night ; 

The voice w^as low, the look was bright ; 
He looked upon my crown and smiled: 
394 



i 



He readied the glory of a hand, 

That seemed to touch it mto leaf : 
The voice was not the voice of grief, 

The words were hard to understand. 

Tennyson. 



The Eternal Spring -.c:?- >o <?- -o>^ 

PASSING away, saith the World, passing 
away : 
Chances, beauty, and youth sapped day by day: 
Thy life never continueth in one stay. 
Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing 

to grey 
That hath won neither laurel nor bay ? 
I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in 

May ; 
Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay 
On my bosom for aye. 
Then I answered : Yea. 

Passing away, saith my Soul, passing away : 
With its burden of fear and hope, of labour and 

play; 
Hearken what the past doth witness and say : 
Rust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array, 
395 



A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay. 

At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain 

day 
Lo, the Bridegroom shall come and shall not 

delay : 
Watch thou and pray. 
Then I answered : Yea. 

Passing away, saith my God, passing away : 

Winter passeth after the long delay : 

New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender 

spray. 
Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven's May. 
Though I tarry wait for Me, trust Me, watch and 

pray. 
Arise, come away, night is past and lo it is day. 
My love, My sister. My spouse, thou shalt hear 

Me say. 
Then I answered : Yea. 

Christina Rossetti. 

New Year's Chimes ^.o- ^c^ <::?' o 



\ T THAT is the song the stars sing? 

V V (^Aiid a millioji songs are as so7ig of one. ^ 
This is the song the stars sing : 
Siveeter song's none. 

396 



un. 



One to set, and many to sing, 

(^And a million songs are as song of one), 
One to stand, and many to cling. 
The many things, and the one Thing, 

The one that runs not, the many that n 

The ever new weaveth the ever old 
(^And a million songs are as song of one). 

Ever telling the never told ; 

The silver saith, and the said is gold. 
And done ever the never done. 



The chase that's chased is the Lord o' the chase 
{^And a million songs are as song of one), 

And the pm'sued cries on the race ; 

And the homids in leash are the hounds that 



Hidden stars by the shown stars' sheen; 

(^And a million suns are but as one) ; 
Colours unseen by the colours seen. 
And sounds unheard heard sounds between. 

And a night is in the light of the sun. 

An ambuscade of light in night, 

(^And a million secrets are hut as one). 

And a night is dark in the sun's light. 

And a world in the world man looks upon. 
397 



Hidden stars by the shown stars' wings, 

(A /id a tnillion cycles are but as one), 
And a world with unapparent sti'ings 
Knits the simulant world of things ; 
Behold, and vision thereof is none. 

The world above in the world below 

i^Aml a million worlds are hut as one), 
And the One in all ; as the sun's strength so 
Strives in all strength, glows in all glow 

Of the earth that wits not, and man thereon. 



Braced in its own fourfold embrace 

(^And a million strengths are as strength oj one). 

And round it all God's arms of grace. 

The world, so as the Vision says. 

Doth with great lightning-tramples run. 

And thunder bruiteth into thunder, 

(^And a million sounds are as sound of one), 
From stellate peak to peak is tossed a voice of 

wonder. 
And the height stoops down to the depths there- 
under. 
And sun leans forth to his brother-sun. 
398 



I 



And the more ample years unfold 
( fVith a yniUion songs as song of onc^, 

A little new of the ever old^ 

A little told of the never told, 
Added act of the never done. 

Loud the descant, and low the theme, 
(y4 million songs are as song of one) ; 

And the dream of the world is dream in dream. 

But the one Is is, or nought could seem ; 
And the song runs round to the song begun. 

This is the song the stars sing 

( Toned all in time) ; 
Tintinnabulous, tuned to ring 
A multitudinous-single thing. 

Rung all in rhyme. 

Francis Thompson. 



399 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 



TAGE 

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever . . . -151 
Ah, what avails the sceptred race .... 320 
And on her lover's arm she leant . . . -72 

And thou my Word, begotten Son, by thee . . 4 

Arise, you little glancing wings, and sing your infant 

joy 19 

Ask me no more where Jove bestows .... 59 



B 

Be near me when my light is low 
Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead . 
Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven's joy 
Break, break, break ..... 
But do not let us quarrel any more 



324 

97 

210 

315 
76 



Cast wide the folding doorways of the East . . 35 

Come live with me and be my Love .... 62 

Come to me in the silence of the night . . . 322 
2 C 401 



Day ! . . 

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave . 

Does the road wind up-hill all the way 

Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes intendeth 



PAGE 

226 

156 

344 

57 



Fear death? — to feel the fog in my throat . . . 375 

Fear no more the heat o' the sun .... 346 

Five years have past ; five summers, with the length . 203 

Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse . 127 

From harmony, from heavenly harmony ... 8 



Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morn 
Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song 
Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill 
Go, lovely Rose ..... 

Go not, happy day ..... 



25 

142 

349 
56 
60 



Hail, holy Light ! offspring of heav'n first-born 
Hail thou most sacred venerable thing ! 
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit ! . , . 

He came all so still ..... 
Home, home from the horizon far and clear 
How happy is he born and taught 



10 

3 

20 

224 

374 
128 



I 

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers . . 29 

I dreamed there would be Spring no more . . . 394 

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days . . 336 

402 



I had not seen my son's dear face 

I have led her home, my love, my only friend 

I saw Eternity the other night . 

I thought once how Theocritus had sung 

I wandered lonely as a cloud 

I weep for Adonais— he is dead ! 

If, in the silent mind of One all-pure . 

Is that enchanted moan only the swell 

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free 

It little profits that an idle king . 



323 

63 

371 

103 

152 
161 
136 
69 
226 
131 



Labour and love ! there are no other laws 
Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Little Iamb, who made thee ? . . . . 
Live in these conquering leaves : live all the same 
Love that hath us in the net 



393 

lOI 

225 
92 

lOI 



Mine be a cot beside the hill 

Move eastward, happy earth, and leave 

My heart leaps up when I behold 

My true love hath my heart, and I have his 



130 
67 
25 

102 



N 



No coward soul is mine 



376 



O 

Oh ! pleasant exercise of hope and joy ! 
O mistress mine, where are you roaming ? 
O my Luve's like a red, red rose 
O nothing, in this corporal earth of man 
O that 'twere possible 

403 



134 
66 
96 

202 
87 



O true and tried, so well and long ... 

O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being 

Often I think of the beautiful town 

On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life . 

One word is too often profaned .... 



P 

Paestum ! thy roses long ago 

Palace-roof of cloudless nights . 

Passing away, saith the World, passing away 

Piping down the valleys wild 

Praised be the fathomless universe 



R 



Remember me when I am gone away 



Say not, the struggle nought availeth . 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day ', 

She walks — the lady of my delight 

She was a Phantom of delight . 

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part 

So all day long the noise of battle rolled 

So was he lifted gently from the ground 

Stern Daughter of the Voice of God . 

Strew on her roses, roses . 

Surprised by joy, impatient as the wind 

Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet 

Swiftly walk over the western wave . 



Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean 
Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind 
404 



319 

94 



The curfew tolls the knell of parting day . 

The lark sitting upon his earthy bed, just as the morn 

The moon shines bright : in such a night as this . 

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose . 

The sun descending in the West 

The world's great age begins anew 

The world is too much with us ; late and soon . 

There they are, my fifty men and women . 

There, through the long, long summer hours 

There was a boy ; ye knew him well, ye cliffs 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream 

They are all gone into the world of light 

Thou art the Way ...... 

Thou perceivest the flowers put forth their precious 
odours . . . . . 

Thou still unravished bride of quietness 

Three years she grew in sun and shower 

Thy voice is on the rolling air . 

Tiger, tiger, burning bright .... 

To see a world in a grain of sand 
Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men ! . 

W 

We cannot kindle when we will .... 
What is the song the stars sing ? . 
" What ! you are stepping westward? " — " Yea'' 
When on my bed the moonlight falls . 
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
Who knows what days I answer for to-day? 
Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I 
build 



362 

13 

67 

32 

372 

33 

130 

107 

347 

313 

385 

334 

143 

14 
153 

315 

343 

6 

152 

158 



144 

396 

333 
321 

317 

14s 



Y 

Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon . . . .320 
You'll love me yet ! — and I can tarry .... 96 
2 D 405 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 



Anon., 224. 




Herrick, 25. 




Arnold, Matthew, 136, 


144, 






345, 348. 




Keats, 151, 153. 




Blake, 6, 13, 14, 19, 


152, 


Lander, 95, 320. 




223, 225, 372. 




Longfellow, 309. 




Bronte, Emily, 376. 




Lovelace, 94. 




Browning, E. B., 103. 








Browning, Robert, 76, 96 


,97, 


Marlowe, 62. 




107, 156, 211, 226, 375. 


Meynell, Alice, 75, 143, 


145 


Bryant, 347. 




323, 374- 




Burns, 96, 320. 




Milton, 4, 10, 53, 210. 




Carew, 59. 




Norris, J., of Bemerton 


4- 


Chaucer, 127. 








Clough, A. H., 141. 




Rogers, Samuel, 130. 




Crashaw, 92. 




Rossetti, Christina, 322, 
361, 395- 


344 


D rayton, 








Dryden, 8. 




Shakespeare, 66, d"]^ 
loi, 317, 346. 


76 


Gosse, Edmund, 393. 




Shelley, 20, 29, 33, 70 


,93 


Gray, 362. 




159, 369, 381. 





406 



Sidney, Sir Philip, 57, 102. 

Tennyson, 32, 60, 63, d*]^ 69, 
72,87, loi, 117, 131, 142, 
189, 3i5> 319, 321, 324, 
343, 394. 

Thompson, Francis, 35, 202, 

zz^. 396. 



Vaughan, Herbert, 334, 371. 

Waller, 56. 

Whitman, Walt, 375. 

Wordsworth, 25, 73, 130, 134, 
137,146,152,158,200,203, 
226,313,315,318,333,385. 

Wotton, 128. 



407 



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